On Thursday, the Senate Judiciary Committee moved forward with the nomination of Michael Brennan to the Seventh Circuit, the federal appeals court for Illinois, Indiana and Wisconsin, despite a troubling record—and over a home state senator’s objections.
What’s so bad about Brennan? Well, he’s not shy about saying judges shouldn't follow precedent.
[A] 2001 piece Brennan wrote for National Review ... argued that judges appointed by George W. Bush should be free to only follow “correct precedent,” [and] that federal judges owe allegiance “to the Constitution and the laws of the United States, not to other judges’ interpretation thereof.”
Brennan’s “guest comment” is rife with searing indictments of “judicial activism” followed by slippery rationalizations for—you guessed it—judicial activism, if we understand that term to include advancing a political agenda from the bench.
You might also remember Brennan as the guy who refused to admit the presence of even implicit racial bias in the criminal justice system during his hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Brennan is so odious that Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) didn’t return the “blue slip” home state senators use to indicate they accept a nominee. Traditionally, Baldwin’s objection would have killed the nomination.
In late January, Senator Baldwin wrote a letter to Senator Grassley, explaining that she decided to withhold her blue slip because the White House was “circumventing” the Wisconsin Federal Nominating Commission—a initiative managed by the state bar association that vets and recommends potential judges. (More than a dozen states have such commissions.) Baldwin’s letter goes on to describe how she and her home state colleague, Republican Sen. Ron Johnson, agreed to make use of the nominating commission, before laying out a timeline that suggests the White House was moving toward picking Brennan before the Wisconsin commission even opened its application process to people wanting to be considered for the vacancy.
Unfortunately, Republicans are as hellbent on packing the judiciary as Brennan is objectionable as a candidate for joining it.
Brennan ... has the distinction of being the second Trump judicial nominee to move forward without a so-called “blue slip” from both of his home state senators.
The first judicial nominee that Judiciary Chair Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) forced through without the approval of both home state senators was David Stras. He now sits on the Eighth Circuit, which hears federal appeals from Arkansas, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota and South Dakota.
Brennan’s advancement comes just a week after the Judiciary Committee okayed Howard Nielson, who stands out for his work facilitating the use of torture by the U.S. government under the Bush administration as well as his anti-LGBTQ stances.