Recently in The Lost Episodes Category

Juan Non-Volokh, of the Volokh Conspiracy, has written about the reasons my current (and soon-to-be-former) boss, Judge Henry Saad, is still, after many years, being blocked from confirmation as a federal appellate court judge by Senate Democrats.

Juan begins:

. . . I was struck by the opening of [Election Law Blog writer Rick Hasen's] piece:

Democrats in the Senate have used the power of the filibuster to block from office the 10 most ideologically extreme of President Bush’s nominees for federal judgeships, while approving a vast majority of his nominees.

This caught my eye because it is false.

* * *
Senate Democrats oppose confirmation of four nominees to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit from Michigan -- Henry Saad, Richard Griffin, David McKeague, and Susan Neilson -- because Republican Senators blocked Clinton's Michigan nominees, including one who is related to Senator Carl Levin.

And, interestingly, as Q and O Blog points out, if Judge Saad is truly the right-wing extremist that Senate Democrats would have us believe he is, he would likely not have received endorsements from the likes of the UAW, the AFL-CIO, or the Michigan Education Assocation.

As I write this, Judge Saad is still waiting for confirmation, and it would appear that his hopes ride either on some sort of deal being struck with Senate Democrats, or on the proposed "nuclear option" that would eliminate filibusters for judicial confirmation votes.

[Posted May 23, 2005, from the "Lost Episodes."]

The cloture motion did not pass -- the vote, largely along party lines, was 52-46, with 60 votes required to stop debate and a filibuster. Politics at work, I guess.

This morning, the United States Senate is set to vote, finally, on the President's nomination of my boss, Judge Henry William Saad, to the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. More correctly, the vote is one for cloture, to head off an expected filibuster by Senate Democrats. If the vote is successful, the Democrats will be unable to block a confirmation vote.

The judge for whom I clerk, Judge Henry William Saad of the Michigan Court of Appeals, has finally been reported favorably to the full Senate by the Senate Judiciary Committee. Judge Saad was nominated nearly three years ago to a seat on the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit by President George W. Bush.

How Appealing has this to say about today's vote.

It seems somewhat strange not to be able to able to blog about something so significant that is happening right in the office I work for, but such is the nature of being a law clerk. If you're reading this, it means I've finally decided to post it at some point after ending my clerkship with Judge Saad. In the meantime, I have it for posterity's sake, at least.

Yahoo! News reports that Californians Dump Davis, Elect Schwarzenegger.

It's official. There's almost nothing too crazy for California.

As a somewhat humorous addendum, the Yahoo Lead Photo accompanying the story is somewhat ironic considering Arnold's--excuse me, Governor Schwarzenegger's--attempts to distance himself from pro-Hitler remarks he made in the 1970s.

And yet another humorous addendum is from Ben Kepple's Daily Rant, which features this update on some of the lesser known candidates in the battle for last place.

Well, I can't believe I haven't weighed in on this before now, but since the appointed day has come for Californians to decide whether they should give the boot to their governor, whom they just elected last November, I guess I'd best weigh in now.

I see from this report at Yahoo! News that at least one poll worker said that this particular election has seen a turnout at her polling station the likes of which she hadn't seen in twelve years. I'm not sure that's necessarily a good thing. Something like two million absentee ballots have already been cast.

I'm all for democracy in action, but, let's face it, these people had a chance to decide who should be governor last November, and one has to wonder just where the hell all these people were then. This whole recall circus has cost the state over $67 million so far, and by law, if Governor Davis somehow "wins" by withstanding the recall vote, and memory serves, the state will have to reimburse him the millions he spent to campaign all over again.

In principle, I guess I can see the value in getting an ineffective leader out of office, but in practice, this whole exercise has been ridiculously expensive, and I cannot help but be tempted to blame the voters in California who didn't take the time to do their homework the first time around and not elect Davis in the first place. Furthermore, the guy was elected with less than fifty percent of the vote. A testament to the dangers of voter apathy, perhaps, is the California recall debacle.

If recalled, Davis would only be the second governor in US history to have been so ousted from office, the first having been then-North Dakota Governor Lynn Frazier way back in 1921.

In today's hyperactive, short-attention-span society, though, I can't help but think that this may end up setting a bad precedent. How can our leaders function effectively, for example, if they fear being second-guessed at every turn, and have to be distracted by campaigning against constant recall attempts? Will general elections end up meaning nothing?

And then we get to the heir-apparent, our good friend Arnold Schwarzenegger, who looked to be a shoe-in until allegations of past episodes of fondling women against their will came to light. Now, most of these episodes were long in the past, and he has acknowledged and apolgized for a few of them. Then, predictably, many more allegations came to light, to the point where one has to wonder whether they're all genuine (which, again, takes away from the credibility of the women who may genuinely have been wronged). It seems unlikely that this development will save Governor Davis, but will it irreparably harm Schwarzenegger's chances? Maybe it will. And maybe it should, especially if the more recent allegations are true.

In any event, I'm sure we won't have a hard time following the chronicles of the misadventures of California politics over the coming days and weeks. Should make for some interesting reading, and blogging, to say the least.

Overlawyered.com reports that the "Public balks at obesity lawsuits." It turns out that upwards of 9 out of 10 Americans disapprove of recent lawsuits against McDonald's alleging that the Golden Arches caused plaintiffs' obesity. I'm not altogether surprised. It is, in fact, a rather shocking abdication of personal responsibility for anyone to even try and blame fast food merchants for their obesity. Many factors combine to cause the problem, to be sure, but the last time I checked, Ronald McDonald wasn't exactly going around dragging customers into their stores and forcefeeding Big Macs down their throats (although you never can tell about that crafty rogue known as Hamburglar).

I am happy to see that most people disapprove of these lawsuits, as it's good to know that our blame-shifting society hasn't completely tossed aside all sense of personal responsibility. On the other hand, as evidenced by the topic being taken up on Overlawyered, this can only serve to help damage the already flagging reputation of the legal profession. It is somewhat disheartening that I will automatically, by virtue of my membership in the profession, have the actions of the glorified ambulance chasers who took on this frivolous case imputed to me.

A friend of mine has an equally frivolous suggestion as a counter -- he jokes that he'd like to hire me to sue the plaintiffs in the obesity suits for raising the price of his value meals to pay for defending against firvolous lawsuits. Though he said it in jest, it'd be fun if somehow someone could pull off such a suit. It would perhaps at least give plaintiffs in frivolous suit some pause.

It seems more likely than expecting people to start taking responsibility for their own actions again.

I'm also pleased to note that Overlawyered referenced this article at the National Review website by James Justin Wilson, who is the most recent person to hold the post of editor-in-chief of The Michigan Review, a position I held from 1996-1997 during my undergraduate days at the University of Michigan (Ben Kepple, of Daily Rant fame, was my right-hand man, and later succeeded me in the job). It's always good to see a Review alum make good.