No Judicial Activism Here…

Colorado Senators Bennett and Udall presented the name of William J. Martinez along with 5 others to President Obama to fill a vacant seat on the U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado.  This choice is revealing of the philosophy that Bennett, Udall, and Obama have toward the judiciary.

Martinez is a partner in the law firm of McNamara, Roseman, Martinez, and Kazmierski.  His experience is largely in the realm of equal opportunity law.  This alone certainly shouldn’t disqualify him, but there are other factors that make him a poor choice at best.

There is a standard that applies to the employment and equal opportunity, and is the law in Federal employment.  Creating a hostile work environment or an appearance of bias is a violation.  The appearance of bias or preferential treatment is considered to be as bad as proven bias.  Indications of predetermination can raise legitimate questions regarding the fairness of decisions in which the bias could play a part.

This is important because Martinez has shown a marked tendency toward a very particular point of view that a thinking person would assume will color his decisions from the bench.  Unfortunately, this predeliction is not one of Constitutional originalism.  To the contrary, Martinez is a member of some organizations that have shown marked hostility toward the Constitution, and support of liberal judicial activism.

 Martinez is a member of Greenpeace, USA; Amnesty International; the Sierra Club; Colorado Public Radio; the National Resources Defense Council; and worst of all, the ACLU of Colorado.

One can only assume that Bennett, Udall, and Obama are aware of these memberships.  The well known liberal agendas of these organizations could not have escaped the attention of Martinez or his nominators.  The appearance of bias alone should disqualify him from this nomination, but if it doesn’t, he should be questioned vigorously by Congress in regard to his potential bias.  Most importantly, if he is seated on this bench, President Obama and Senator Udall should be held to account for the affect of his opinions and rulings.

Martinez has promised to end his membership in most of these organizations if he is given the seat, but trusting a liberal to leave his ideology at the court room door is like trusting the current administration to be as tranparent as promised.

 Not gonna happen.

Satire V

 (As of this date, no nominee is listed in the Judicial Committee vacancies http://www.uscourts.gov/judicialvac.cfm?WT.cg_n=Newsroom)

This entry was posted on 3. February 2010 at 21:32 and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.

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