December 24, 2005
Inside Report
By Robert
Novak
LIBERAL JUDGE
WASHINGTON
-- Federal District Judge James Robertson, who resigned from the
Foreign Intelligence Surveillance (FISA) court in protest over
secret wiretaps ordered by President Bush, is regarded in Washington
legal circles as one of President Bill Clinton's most liberal
and partisan judicial appointments.
Robertson,
67, has ruled consistently against the Bush administration's handling
of enemy combatants. On July 15 this year, the U.S. Court of Appeals
for the District of Columbia reversed his 2004 ruling that a military
commission could not try alleged terrorist Salim Ahmed Hamdan.
In private
Washington practice before going on the court, Robertson was an
aggressive civil rights advocate. He spent 1969-1972 with the
Lawyer's Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, serving for a time
as the organization's chief counsel in Jackson, Miss. In 1994,
Clinton named him to the federal bench, where he remains despite
his resignation from the FISA court.
GONZALES
BLOOPER
During hectic
Senate bargaining on the Patriot Act Wednesday night, Attorney
General Alberto Gonzales almost ruined the deal by telephoning
Democratic senators with the misinformation that Republican Sens.
Larry Craig and John Sununu had agreed to the administration's
version of extending the act.
In fact,
the Republican dissenters had agreed only to a temporary extension
of the act that provided the government with additional legal
tools against terrorism. The White House assured the senators
that Gonzales was not speaking for the president. A six-month
extension then was passed by the Senate to permit negotiation
of the act's provisions that critics say violate civil liberties
of ordinary Americans.
A footnote:
On Wednesday night, presidential aides informed senators that
Bush had never threatened to veto a short-term extension of the
Patriot Act as hinted in White House briefings and as had been
widely published. That opened the door to resolving the Senate
deadlock.
SEN. "KENZI"
Republican
senators complain that Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, liberal lion of
the Senate, has taken over effective control of the Senate Health,
Education, Labor and Pensions Committee because the Republican
chairman, Sen. Michael Enzi of Wyoming, defers to him so much.
In an era
of intense partisanship, Kennedy and Enzi collaborate on spending
and regulatory measures before their committee. In addition, Enzi
has joined Kennedy in signing letters calling for investigation
of Bush administration practices. "He is my favorite chairman,"
Kennedy said of Enzi Jan. 20, the first of many such compliments.
Behind his
back, Republican staffers have come to refer to the chairman as
Sen. "Kenzi." However, Enzi last month declined to support
Kennedy's version of a minimum wage increase and came up with
his own proposal.
LOBBYIST
SHUFFLE
Ken Rietz,
long a major figure in Republican politics, is leaving Burson-Marsteller
in March after 30 years while Democratic pollster-political consultant
Mark Penn takes over the big lobbying and public relations firm
as worldwide CEO.
Penn was
President Bill Clinton's pollster and political adviser and is
expected to play a similar role in any presidential campaign by
Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton. The selection of so prominent a Democrat
at a time when the government is controlled by the Republicans
raised eyebrows in Washington.
Burson-Marsteller's
Dec. 7 announcement of Penn's appointment related several other
personnel changes but did not mention Rietz's name. He currently
is the firm's Washington-based CEO, U.S.
CONGRESSIONAL
RESHUFFLE
The new
U.S. census estimates project a likely increase after 2010 of
five House seats in Republican-dominated "red" states,
one more than previously forecast. Nevada is now expected to gain
a fourth seat in the House at the expense of Massachusetts, which
would lose one of its current 10 seats.
Previous
projections had Arizona, Florida, Texas and Utah gaining one seat
each. The losers would be Iowa, New York, Ohio and Pennsylvania.
Each of the states expected to gain in 2010, with the exception
of Utah, also won an extra seat after the 2000 census.
The projections
were made by Election Data Services, a Washington-based consulting
firm that provides information useful for gerrymandering.
Copyright
2005 Creators Syndicate
