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Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid says he will ask the Senate to vote this week on the nomination of Caitlin Halligan, President Obama’s nominee to fill one of four vacancies on the DC Circuit Court of Appeals – a nomination that Senate Republicans filibustered in 2011 and may again. The DC Circuit, is often considered the second-highest court in the nation because it has the final word on a wide range of issues --  worker’s rights, environmental protection, consumer health and safety, and preventing Wall Street abuse – that affect the entire country.   Here are five reasons why Halligan deserves a vote from the Senate:

1. She’s brilliant. Halligan’s qualifications are unquestionable. She  has an impressive background as a prosecutor and litigator, serving for six years as New York’s solicitor general and arguing several cases before the Supreme Court. She currently serves as general counsel for the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office and has earned the endorsements of law enforcement organizations and leaders including legendary Manhattan DA Robert Morgenthau, NYC Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly, the National District Attorneys Association, the New York Association of Chiefs of Police, the New York State Sheriff’s Association, and the National Center for Women and Policing. She also has the support of a bipartisan group of America’s most renowned appellate advocates, including top legal officials from the Clinton and Reagan administrations. She received the highest possible rating from the American Bar Association.
2. She would become only the sixth woman to sit on the DC Circuit in its 120-year history. Early in her career, Halligan clerked for the first woman to sit on the court, former Judge Patricia Wald, and has in turn served as a mentor to other women lawyers. President Obama has placed a priority on making the federal courts reflect the people they serve, nominating a greater percentage of women and people of color than any previous president and putting more openly LGBT judges on the bench than all his predecessors combined.
3. The DC Circuit doesn’t have enough judges. The Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit has an enormous influence over federal policy, from environmental and health regulations to consumer protections to national security. But the court doesn’t have enough judges to keep up with its workload: four of the eleven seats on the court are vacant, and the seat that Halligan is nominated to fill has been vacant since 2005. Because of this vacancy crisis, the caseload per active judge on the court has risen more than 50 percent since 2005, meaning longer waits for Americans seeking justice.
4. The opposition to her nomination is flimsy. In their effort to keep an Obama nominee off the DC Circuit, opponents of her nomination have relied on a flimsy manufactured controversy. In particular, some have attacked Halligan for the official role she played as New York’s solicitor general in a suit against gun manufacturers. However, as recently as 2005, many of the Republicans opposing Halligan stated that positions that lawyers took on behalf of their clients should be off-limits in judicial confirmation battles.  Defending positions advocated by now-Chief Justice John Roberts on behalf of clients including the Reagan and Bush administrations, Sen. John Cornyn said, “Our adversarial system of justice depends on lawyers not just taking cases with which they perhaps ideologically are inclined to agree but, rather, they are supposed to take the facts and the legal arguments and do the very best they can so that in a clash that plays out in our adversarial system of justice in the court room.” Roberts himself stated, “My point is simply this, that in representing clients, in serving as a lawyer, it’s not my job to decide whether that’s a good idea or a bad idea. The job of the lawyer is to articulate the legal arguments on behalf of the client.”
5. The president deserves votes on his nominees. Under President Bush, many Republican senators said that it was wrong, or even unconstitutional, to filibuster a president’s judicial nominees. Under President Obama, they have apparently forgotten those positions, prompting more cloture petitions to end filibusters of judicial nominees in President Obama's first term than there were in Bush’s entire presidency. President Obama has won two elections, yet has not put a single judge on the second-highest court in the country. His nominee deserves, at the very least, an up-or-down confirmation vote.
    

Last week the Equal Justice Task Force of the African American Ministers Leadership Council, a program of People For the American Way Foundation, joined with a broad coalition of organizations in filing amicus briefs for the marriage equality cases being considered by the Supreme Court.  These cases – Hollingsworth v. Perry, which challenges California’s Proposition 8, and Windsor v. U.S., which challenges Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) – represent landmark opportunities for our nation to move toward making marriage equality a reality for all Americans. 

“As African American faith leaders, we feel it is our responsibility to question hatred and discrimination wherever it happens – and especially in our laws,” said Minister Leslie Watson Malachi, Director of the African American Ministers Leadership Council. “Laws singling out and preventing same-sex couples from getting married are blatantly discriminatory and they hurt our communities. These amicus briefs voice our support for equal rights and equal justice for all of God’s children.”

The amicus brief for the Hollingsworth case, a continuation of the 2010 brief PFAW Foundation submitted when the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals reviewed the case, exposes the discriminatory nature of the supposedly “moral” rationales for Proposition 8:

This Court has refused for three-quarters of a century to uphold laws disfavoring minority groups based on religious or moral disapproval alone—with the one, now-discredited exception of Bowers v. Hardwick, 478 U.S. 186 (1986). And for good reason: Time and again throughout our nation’s history, laws that disadvantaged or degraded particular groups have been justified by resort to morality and religion. And time and again, our society has come to see those laws as repugnant, and the religious and moral disapproval justifying them as little more than a means to enshrine the status quo.

Likewise, the amicus brief for the Windsor case points out:

This Court has long implicitly acknowledged the connection between religious justifications and the Equal Protection guarantee. The Court’s decision overturning Virginia’s law forbidding marriage between persons of different races is illustrative. In Loving v. Virginia, the Court dismissed the Virginia trial judge’s proffered religious-based rationale, which cited God’s hand in creating different races, recognizing instead that “[t]here is patently no legitimate overriding purpose independent of invidious racial discrimination which justifies this classification.” 388 U.S. 1, 11 (1967). Ultimately, the Court recognized that the anti-miscegenation law served no secular purpose, and was based on nothing more than racial discrimination—even if disguised as a moral or religious belief.

As these briefs highlight, discrimination – even if cloaked in the language of religious or moral beliefs – is still discrimination.

This piece is the fifth in a series of guest blog posts on “Why It’s Time to Dump DOMA.” In the weeks leading up to the Supreme Court arguments on the anti-gay Defense of Marriage Act, we’re asking friends of PFAW to share why dumping DOMA matters to them. Be sure to check back soon for the latest post in the series.

Is it wrong for committed couples to share retirement and medical benefits? Is it wrong for Americans to expect to receive equal justice under the law?

No, but it is wrong for our government to dictate who we can love and who we cannot. It is wrong for our government to recognize some married couples and not others. But that is exactly what the Defense Of Marriage Act does.

Marriage equality doesn’t hurt anybody or take away anybody’s freedoms. But DOMA does both of those things. Supporters of DOMA sound dangerously like those who said we should outlaw interracial marriages in the previous century. It’s time for this country to say we are done with DOMA and dump it.

Reverend Charles Williams II
Member of People For the American Way’s African American Ministers In Action

One year ago this week, on February 29, 2012, the Montana Great Falls Tribune exposed a now-notorious racist e-mail that federal district judge Richard Cebull sent about President Obama. The judge defended his distribution of the e-mail to friends by claiming that he is "not a fan of our president," making it even clearer that his racist conduct and openly expressed partisan beliefs prevent him from being a trusted judge. People For the American Way was among those calling upon him to resign.

On March 23, Ninth Circuit Chief Judge Kozinski appointed a committee of federal judges to investigate and "to make a report and recommendation to the Judicial Council of the Ninth Circuit." But Judge Cebull has continued to decide cases, and there has been no public announcement of any progress by the investigating committee.

Last fall, he announced that he plans to take senior status on March 18, which will allow him to take a lighter caseload but still make decisions of justice affecting people and businesses in Montana. His taking senior status will in no way lessen the damage he does to the federal judiciary by remaining on the bench.

We are still awaiting appropriate action.

It was no surprise that the Supreme Court's far-right Justices would take a dim view of the Voting Rights Act in today's oral arguments in Shelby County v. Holder. Even so, Justice Scalia managed to outdo himself in showing his willingness to ignore any aspect of the law that gets in his way.

The Fifteenth Amendment, which prohibits voting discrimination on the basis of race, specifically empowers Congress to pass laws putting its commands into effect:

The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

It's hard to get any plainer than that. Yet Scalia today claimed that Congress should not be involved in this area. After denigrating the most important civil rights legislation in United States history as "racial entitlement," he went on:

Whenever a society adopts racial entitlements, it is very difficult to get out of them through the normal political processes.

I don't think there is anything to be gained by any Senator to vote against continuation of this act. And I am fairly confident it will be reenacted in perpetuity unless -- unless a court can say it does not comport with the Constitution. You have to show, when you are treating different States differently, that there's a good reason for it.

That's the -- that's the concern that those of us who -- who have some questions about this statute have. It's -- it's a concern that this is not the kind of a question you can leave to Congress.

So protecting the right to vote is a "racial entitlement." And when the Constitution gives Congress the authority to do something, it's up to Justice Scalia to jump in and decide that Congress really shouldn't have that authority.

Scalia is famous for his claimed fealty to the text of a law. But he ignores the text of the Fifteenth Amendment. As if that weren't bad enough, he takes it upon himself to decide that Congress clearly didn't mean it when it adopted and extended Section 5.

And to think that conservatives want more Justices like Scalia on our nation's courts.

This week, the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in Shelby County v. Holder, a case challenging the protections of the Voting Rights Act. Based on a simple idea, one that is enshrined in our Constitution, the right to vote cannot be denied on the basis of race. It is considered by the Department of Justice to be "the most effective civil rights statute enacted by Congress," prohibiting voting discrimination in order to protect the right to vote for all Americans.

When President Lyndon Johnson signed into law the Voting Rights Act of 1965, he called the vote "the most powerful instrument ever devised by man for breaking down injustice" and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. called it the "foundation stone for political action." I call it a sacred right!

The centerpiece of that Act and the case is Section 5. It requires that all or portions of sixteen states with a history and a contemporary record of voting discrimination seek and gain approval federally before they put any changes in election practices into effect. Preclearance as it is known is intended to stop voter disenfranchisement before it can start.

In 1970 and again in 1975, Congress voted to extend the Voting Rights Act. At that time US Representative Barbara Jordan, my (s)hero and co-founder of People For the American Way, sponsored legislation that broadened the provisions of the Act to include Hispanic Americans, Native Americans, and Asian Americans.

As recently as 2006, Congress voted overwhelmingly to reauthorize Section 5 of the law with some critics then and now misguidedly asserting that it overstepped its boundaries, that voting discrimination really isn't a problem anymore, or that voting discrimination in other parts of the country somehow delegitimizes Section 5. I'd like to invite those critics to hear directly from people across the country who devoted countless hours to ensuring that marginalized communities were able to vote this past election.

In 2011 and 2012 I organized faith leaders from 22 states in combating voter suppression efforts and turning out the vote among specific communities. This election cycle offered many powerful reminders why Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act is still needed. Texas, for example, passed a discriminatory voter ID law that would have required voters to present government-issued photo ID at the polls, which would have especially burdened poor people and people of color. But because Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act still stands, this law was defeated and the right to vote was protected. Reverend Simeon L. Queen of Houston, Texas, a comrade in the struggle, reflected: "It is inexcusable that nearly 50 years after the passage of the Voting Rights Act, politicians are still trying to make it harder for African Americans in Texas to vote. I wish the Voting Rights Act wasn't still necessary, but thank the Lord it's still there."

Since 1980 I have been fortunate to work with men and women, some who started before I was born, to fight for laws protecting the right to vote. Despite the commitment of those who devoted their lives to voter protections, the right to vote remains fragile for many Americans. From voter ID laws to restrictions on early voting, as a country we cannot allow anyone to say "this isn't a problem anymore" to communities who are experiencing, as others witness, those problems at the polls each election.

President Johnson called the vote "a powerful instrument," Dr. King the "foundation stone," and for me it's a sacred right for breaking down injustice, removing obstacles to democracy and empowering the dis-empowered. When discriminatory laws threaten Americans' fundamental right to vote, we are called to utilize every tool available. Across the country we have seen the importance of courts in successfully fighting back against voter suppression efforts. Section 5 remains a key to protecting communities, my community from future attempts at disenfranchisement. Hopefully, prayerfully, the Supreme Court will realize this.

 This post originally appeared at the Huffington Post.

Last week, Missouri’s House of Representatives attempted to resuscitate a failed voter ID law, approving two bills that would require voters to present valid, government-issued photo identification in order to vote. One of the bills would call for a November 2014 ballot measure to amend the state constitution to permit a voter ID requirement, and the other would implement the requirement if the measure were to pass.

People For the American Way continues to bring attention to the disproportionate impact voter ID laws have on African Americans, the elderly, low-income people, people with disabilities, and students. When the voter ID bills passed the Missouri House, Reverend Isaac McCullough of People For the American Way’s African American Ministers in Action said:

Faith leaders in my state worked hard in the months leading up to November to get our communities to the polls. It is disheartening to see that some of our Representatives yet gain want to discourage, rather than encourage, people from voting. Suppressive voter ID laws fall especially hard on people who are already marginalized, threatening to keep many Missourians from the polls in future elections. That’s not what our democracy is supposed to be about. As faith leaders, we have fought hard to protect the right to vote – and we are not about to give up that fight anytime soon.

The vote in Missouri comes after years of failed attempts to enact voter ID in the state. In 2006, the Republican-controlled legislature passed a voter ID bill that was later rejected by the state Supreme Court as “a heavy and substantial burden on Missourian’s free exercise of the right of suffrage.” The legislature passed a similar bill in 2011, but Governor Jay Nixon vetoed it. Last year, the legislature voted to put voter ID on the November ballot. However, a judge struck the measure down, calling it “insufficient and unfair.”

The editorial board of the St. Louis Dispatch takes aim at the most recent effort by Republicans attempting to solve a nonexistent problem by disenfranchising thousands by resurrecting these bills:

For a party that likes to drape itself in the flag, Missouri Republicans seem bound and determined to undermine the most basic right in a democracy. The GOP can’t win a national election the fair way, or many statewide elections either. So they figure to steal them instead.

In 2008 Missouri’s top elections official at the time, Secretary of State Robin Carnahan, estimated that 240,000 people in the state did not have the type of photo ID that this legislation requires.