Senate Judiciary Committee to Vote on Southwick on Thursday

(FROM AN EMAIL I RECIEVED FROM PFAW)

President Bush has nominated Leslie Southwick to fill a seat on the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. Bush previously tried to fill the seat with Charles Pickering and then Michael Wallace, both of whom faced significant opposition due to their disturbing legal records, especially on civil rights. Regrettably, Southwick also has a troubling record.

Two cases in particular underscore our concerns about civil rights:

In 1998, while on the Mississippi Court of Appeals, Southwick joined a ruling in an employment case that upheld the reinstatement, without any punishment whatsoever, of a white state employee who was fired for calling an African American co-worker a "good ole nigger." The court's decision effectively ratified a hearing officer's opinion that the slur was only "somewhat derogatory" and "was in effect calling the individual a 'teacher's pet.'" The Mississippi Supreme Court unanimously reversed the decision.
In 2001, Southwick joined a ruling that upheld a chancellor's decision to take an eight-year-old girl away from her mother and award custody to the father, who had never married the mother, largely because the mother was living with another woman in a "lesbian home." Southwick went even further by joining a gratuitously anti-gay concurrence which extolled Mississippi's right under "the principles of Federalism" to treat "homosexual persons" as second-class citizens. The concurrence suggested that sexual orientation is a choice and stated that an adult is not "relieved of the consequences of his or her choice" -- e.g., losing custody of one's child.
Thanks to pressure from PFAW activists, Southwick's confirmation became a lot more controversial within the Judiciary Committee, and his markup vote was pushed back (it was originally scheduled for June 7). But now it's on the calendar for this Thursday!

Please make sure YOUR senators know to oppose Bush's latest anti-civil rights nominee. Visit http://www.pfaw.org/go/RejectSouthwick.