Gordon Smith Hammered on Southwick Confirmation

Senator Gordon Smith is already taking heat for his vote earlier today to confirm judicial nominee Leslie Southwick to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. StopGordonSmith.com detailed Southwick's history as a judge:

Unlike Ron Wyden, Gordon Smith voted today for extremist judicial nominee Leslie Southwick.

Here is the kind of judge Smith thinks represents Oregon values:

As a judge on the Mississippi Court of Appeals for over ten years, Judge Southwick amassed a record that favored business and insurance interests, at the expense of workers, consumers and other victims. In fact, he voted for those interests 89 percent of the time in 180 published split-decision torts and state employment law cases. Moreover, his decisions involving racism in the workplace, the qualifications of gays and lesbians to be parents, women’s property rights following the dissolution of a marriage or relationship, and allegations of racial bias in jury selection, raise questions about his commitment to equal dignity and equal justice.

The site also listed some of Southwick's most notable and worst decisions:

In another case, he agreed that an eight-year-old girl could be taken away from her birth mother, in large part because the mother was living with another woman in a 'lesbian home.' He also joined in the opinion that sexual orientation is a 'choice,' and that one legally acceptable consequence of that 'choice' is losing one's child.

In a third case, he argued that a worker made sick by on-the-job exposure to toxic chemicals could not sue her employer because the three-year statute of limitations had run out...even though the worker had not learned that her illness was job-related until ten years after the onset of her symptoms.

When pressed by Senator Durbin during recent hearings to name just one example of an unpopular decision he made in favor of the powerless, the poor, minorities or the dispossessed, Judge Southwick responded, "no.'"

Meanwhile, on his campaign site, Jeff Merkley also criticized Smith's vote:

“It isn’t surprising that Gordon Smith gave the thumbs-up to another one of Bush’s judicial nominees,” Merkley said. “Southwick has built his judicial career on denying justice to workers and minorities. When the President packs the bench with judges like Southwick, he pits the government against the very people it should be serving.”

Southwick’s decisions include one reinstating a white employee who was fired for using a vulgar racial epithet in reference to a black co-worker. At his Senate hearing he readily defended the decision, saying he failed to see any evidence that usage of that word was “so serious that every workplace is permanently damaged.” Southwick also joined a court opinion which found that a mother’s sexual orientation alone was grounds for denying her custody of her children.

“Leslie Southwick has no business deciding cases on the federal bench,” Merkley said. “It is very troubling that Gordon Smith voted to promote a judge who sees no serious problem with racial slurs against employees and who puts his narrow-minded values ahead of providing a nurturing home for children.”

“Senator Wyden did the right thing, rejecting Southwick’s nomination, but as usual, Gordon Smith cancelled out his vote,” Merkley said. “Oregon needs two Senators who will move America forward, but Gordon Smith is doing everything he can to take us backward.”

Read the rest at StopGordonSmith.com and Jeff Merkley's site. Discuss.