President Barack Obama Will Renominate Two Abortion Advocates for Judgeships

National   |   Steven Ertelt   |   Jan 8, 2010   |   9:00AM   |   WASHINGTON, DC

President Barack Obama Will Renominate Two Abortion Advocates for Judgeships

by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
January 8
, 2010

Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) — With Senate Republicans blocking their nominations because of their pro-abortion views and other issues, two nominees for federal judgeships were never approved. With another session of Congress starting shortly, President Barack Obama will reportedly renominate Louis Butler Jr. and Edward Chen.

Obama picked the two abortion advocates to be district court judges — the kind of judges who initially review lawsuits on pro-life issues and legislation before they move up to an appeals court or the Supreme Court.

He could have given them a recess appointment that would be effective for one year only, but decided to renominate them for the lifetime appointment.

Obama nominated Chen, a U.S. Magistrate, a federal judgeship in San Francisco. Chen is a former attorney for the pro-abortion legal group ACLU.

The Senate sent Chen’s name back to the White House last month because Republicans have filibustered his nomination and Democrats apparently don’t have the 60 votes needed to confirm him.

The Senate Judiciary Committee signed off on Chen’s nomination in October on a 12-7 party-line vote.

Chen would become the first Asian-American judge to sit in the Northern District of California, which stretches from Northern District of California but conservative columnist Warner Todd Huston says Chen is out of the mainstream.

"Well, for one, the left-wing American Bar Association rated Chen a ‘well qualified’ nominee and many of his associates at the ACLU speak highly of him," he said. "Chen was quite the ACLU activist between 1979 and 2001. His ACLU history would suffice to make many wary of him, of course."

Also last month, the Senate Judiciary Committee voted along party lines 12-7 for the nomination of Judge Louis B. Butler Jr. for a Federal District Court slot in the Western District of Wisconsin.

Opponents say Butler has a long record of judicial activism — the kind that saw the Supreme Court put Roe v. Wade in place and judges overturn pro-life laws to limit abortion.

Butler is a liberal judge who was rejected by Wisconsin voters twice.

"When Louis Butler lost his race for the Wisconsin Supreme Court in 2008, he was the first incumbent justice to be defeated since 1967," the pro-life group Family Research Council informed LifeNews.com. "He had previously lost to then-Justice Diane S. Sykes in a race for the Court in 2000 – Butler earned 34 percent of the vote and lost in all 72 counties, including Milwaukee and Dane (Madison) counties."

"During his brief but too long tenure on the Wisconsin Supreme Court, Louis Butler was a left-wing judicial activist," FRC warned.

In March 2008, Wisconsin Right to Life termed Butler "pro-abortion" and said there were "lots of reasons voters would want to reject sending Justice Louis Butler back to the State Supreme Court."

ACTION: Contact your senators at https://www.Senate.gov and urge opposition to the nomination of Judges Butler and Chen.

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