Friday, October 28, 2005
In re Maureen Mahoney: Handicapping the next SCOTUS nominee
This morning's Note serves up an extremely handy summary of Big Media's best guesses on Bush's next move:
Maureen Mahoney, for those of you who don't know, is a partner in the Washington office of Latham & Watkins, the TigerHawk Mega Law Firm of choice.
Her biography from the Latham web site:
Although she won't remember, I actually did a small project for Maureen Mahoney as a first year associate, almost twenty years ago. Unfortunately, it did not involve knotty issues of constitutional interpretation. More unfortunately, I had to be bailed out of it by a litigation associate in Chicago who still does not let me forget my first appearance before a judge.
By all accounts (including from friends that know her), Maureen Mahoney would be an outstanding appointment, even if her record suggests uncertain reliability on issues dear to social conservatives. It is a shame that President Bush did not nominate her the first time around, because she would have been an excellent choice before the Miers debacle. I will be pleasantly surprised if he is willing to risk the wrath of social conservatives this time.
The O'Connor seat: the short list(s):
Does the President want a huge ideological fight to rally his base or not? If you can answer that question, you can probably do some narrowing of the short lists provided below:
Washington Post: Alito, Brown, Callahan, Clement, Cornyn, Luttig, McConnell, Owen, Sykes, Thompson, Williams
Associated Press: Alito, Batchelder, Cornyn, Corrigan, Luttig, Mahoney, Owen, Thompson, Wilkinson, Williams
The New York Times: Alito, Luttig, Mahoney, Owen, Sykes, Wilkinson LINK
USA Today: Alito, Brown, Corrigan, Gonzales, Jones, Luttig, McConell, Owen, Wiliams
Wall Street Journal: Alito, Brown, Cornyn, Corrigan, Luttig, Owen, Williams
Wall Street Journal editorial board: Alito, Brown, Jones, Luttig, McConnell, Owen, Wilkinson
Los Angeles Times: Alito, Batchelder, Clement, Jones, Luttig, McConnell, Owen, Sykes, Thompson, Williams
LA Times editorial board: Maureen Mahoney
Boston Globe: Alito, Batchelder, Gonzales, Jones, Luttig, Mahoney, McConnell, Rogers Brown, Thompson, Wilkinson, Williams
Chicago Tribune: Alito, Luttig, Owen, Wilkinson, Williams
Maureen Mahoney, for those of you who don't know, is a partner in the Washington office of Latham & Watkins, the TigerHawk Mega Law Firm of choice.
Education:
JD, University of Chicago, 1978
With Honors; Order of the Coif; Member, University of Chicago Law Review
BA, Indiana University, 1974
Highest Honors; Phi Beta Kappa
Experience:
Maureen Mahoney is a partner in the Washington, D.C. office of Latham & Watkins, and leads the firm's appellate and constitutional practice. Ms. Mahoney originally joined the firm in 1980, but left in 1991 to accept an appointment as a United States Deputy Solicitor General. During her tenure in the Solicitor General's Office, President Bush nominated Ms. Mahoney to fill a vacancy on the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, but the Senate did not act on her nomination prior to the election. Ms. Mahoney returned to the partnership of Latham & Watkins in 1993.
Ms. Mahoney has handled a broad range of constitutional and appellate litigation in the Supreme Court and other courts throughout the country, representing clients as varied as the United States House of Representatives, Union Pacific Railroad Company and the Government of Saudi Arabia. She represented the University of Michigan before the Supreme Court and won the landmark case upholding the constitutionality of admissions programs that consider race as one of many factors in order to attain the educational benefits of a diverse student body. The Legal Times reported that this ruling was a “personal win” for Ms. Mahoney and called her “a skilled appellate advocate, unruffled and poised.” The Daily Journal awarded Ms. Mahoney the “Best Oral Argument” in the individual category accolade for that Supreme Court term and went on to say that she “withstood withering questioning from Justice Antonin Scalia while stressing the points relied upon by O'Connor in her opinion for the 5-4 court.” Most recently, she successfully argued her thirteenth case in the Supreme Court on behalf of Arthur Andersen in a challenge to the firm's criminal conviction. The Legal Times described the argument in Andersen as “one of the term's best.”
Ms. Mahoney argued her first case before the Supreme Court in 1988, when the Court specially selected her to argue a case. She won the case in a 5-4 decision, and the American Lawyer reported that “her presentation was so well-schooled, poised, and disciplined that, according to one justice, the justices passed notes among themselves during the argument praising Mahoney and asking questions about her background.” In 1993, Ms. Mahoney successfully defended a highly publicized challenge to US immigration policies. The American Lawyer reported that Ms. Mahoney used “forensic magic” in the argument, and David Broder's Washington Post column called her argument “superb.” She also represented the House of Representatives in its successful Supreme Court challenge to the Commerce Department's plans for the use of sampling in the 2000 census.
Ms. Mahoney is a member of the American Academy of Appellate Lawyers and the American College of Trial Lawyers. She has been recognized as one of the leading appellate lawyers by the Legal Times and Chambers USA; the National Law Journal identified her as one of America's top 50 women litigators; and she received the prestigious Rex Lee Advocacy Award from the J. Rueben Clark Law Society. Ms. Mahoney was appointed by the Chief Justice to serve as the Chair of the Supreme Court Fellows Commission and as a member of the Advisory Committee on Appellate Rules to the United States Judicial Conference. She serves on the Executive Committee of the Supreme Court Historical Society, served as the Chair of the Advisory Committee on Procedures for the D.C. Circuit and served on the Board of Visitors for the University of Chicago Law School.
Prior to entering private practice, Ms. Mahoney served as a law clerk to the Honorable William H. Rehnquist (then Associate Justice) and Seventh Circuit Judge Robert Sprecher (deceased).
Although she won't remember, I actually did a small project for Maureen Mahoney as a first year associate, almost twenty years ago. Unfortunately, it did not involve knotty issues of constitutional interpretation. More unfortunately, I had to be bailed out of it by a litigation associate in Chicago who still does not let me forget my first appearance before a judge.
By all accounts (including from friends that know her), Maureen Mahoney would be an outstanding appointment, even if her record suggests uncertain reliability on issues dear to social conservatives. It is a shame that President Bush did not nominate her the first time around, because she would have been an excellent choice before the Miers debacle. I will be pleasantly surprised if he is willing to risk the wrath of social conservatives this time.
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