Corporations lobbying for judicial nominations
Evidently, this is a new strategy. Are other people as uneasy about this as I am?
An industry group's plan to spend millions promoting conservative nominees brings a new dimension to the divisive confirmation battles
The strategy's engineer is former Michigan Gov. John Engler, a longtime friend of President Bush who recently took the helm of the National Assn. of Manufacturers.
Engler said in an interview Wednesday that his organization would make confirmation of judicial nominees a top priority for the first time — providing money and a recently honed ability to stir grass-roots action nationwide. The group plans to spend millions of dollars on the campaign, but the exact amount has not been decided.
He said federal judicial confirmation debates are important to business, particularly because of judges' roles in civil liability cases.
"There has been too much of a tendency in the past to cast these judgeship battles as a social debate about abortion or gay rights. In fact, there are very few of those cases in contrast to those dealing with the tort system and the rights of individuals and companies," Engler said.
...
Longtime observers said the involvement of well-heeled organizations such as the manufacturers' group — which represents such large, blue-chip firms as General Motors, Boeing and Caterpillar as well as 10,000 small and medium-sized manufacturers — could increase pressure on moderate senators whose votes helped block confirmation for 10 of the 34 Bush nominees to federal appeals courts in the past two years. Several of those senators face reelection in 2006 and are already facing threats from religious conservative leaders if they try to block conservative jurists.
An industry group's plan to spend millions promoting conservative nominees brings a new dimension to the divisive confirmation battles
The strategy's engineer is former Michigan Gov. John Engler, a longtime friend of President Bush who recently took the helm of the National Assn. of Manufacturers.
Engler said in an interview Wednesday that his organization would make confirmation of judicial nominees a top priority for the first time — providing money and a recently honed ability to stir grass-roots action nationwide. The group plans to spend millions of dollars on the campaign, but the exact amount has not been decided.
He said federal judicial confirmation debates are important to business, particularly because of judges' roles in civil liability cases.
"There has been too much of a tendency in the past to cast these judgeship battles as a social debate about abortion or gay rights. In fact, there are very few of those cases in contrast to those dealing with the tort system and the rights of individuals and companies," Engler said.
...
Longtime observers said the involvement of well-heeled organizations such as the manufacturers' group — which represents such large, blue-chip firms as General Motors, Boeing and Caterpillar as well as 10,000 small and medium-sized manufacturers — could increase pressure on moderate senators whose votes helped block confirmation for 10 of the 34 Bush nominees to federal appeals courts in the past two years. Several of those senators face reelection in 2006 and are already facing threats from religious conservative leaders if they try to block conservative jurists.
posted by Solomon | 11:10 AM
3 Comments:
I guess I'm much too jaded because I assumed this had been happening all along.
Nope. There's some serious lobbying changes going on. For example, Walmart never gave money to political groups in any bit of earnestness until last year, http://reclaimdemocracy.org/articles_2004/walmart_largest_political_donor_investor.html
Microsoft didn't start lobbying until the mid-90s.
ch-ch-ch-changes
But what about corps like Lockheed, Boeing, AT&T, etc? Have they not been doing it all along?
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