Civil rights and legal orgs oppose Obama nominee for Legal Services Corp, Sharon Browne

[alp227]

Nominee to legal agency for poor opposed
by Bob Egelko, San Francisco Chronicle
February 3, 2010

Civil rights advocates and lawyers' organizations in San Francisco and elsewhere are fighting President Obama's nomination of Sacramento attorney Sharon Browne to the agency overseeing federal aid to programs that serve poor clients - programs they say Browne has worked to undermine.

More than 70 organizations, including the Bar Association of San Francisco, the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights and the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, have urged the Senate to reject Browne's nomination to the board of Legal Services Corp. The agency, a political storm center for three decades, subsidizes lawyers for 900,000 low-income Americans in civil cases.

Browne, principal attorney for the Pacific Legal Foundation, was one of three Republicans nominated to the board by Obama in December at the recommendation of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky. The president is required to name five Republicans to the 11-member board.

Conservatives, including the Pacific Legal Foundation, have accused Legal Services Corp. of promoting liberal social causes through lawsuits. Congressional critics have attached restrictions to its funding for 15 years.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/02/03/BA251BRHBT.DTL

[gateley]

1. Where does he find some of these people? They aren't at all what/who we would

expect him to choose! I hope he listens to the dissenters on this nomination.

[depakid]

2. Pacific Legal Foundation? That would be like the Bush appointing Nader to the FTC

Oh well, gotta be done in the spirit of bipartisanship.

Actually- on edit- no it wouldn't, because Nader actually believes in the FTC's mission.

[boppers]

3. "The president is required to name five Republicans to the 11-member board."

I don't envy the challenge of finding 5 republican lawyers who *don't* suck.

[depakid]

4. You could damn well find someone better than this!

Pacific Legal Foundation is an appalling organization. Among other things, it's James Watt's old haunt.

That quite aside, you sure don't appoint people who not only don't believe in- but have fought against the agency's mission.

Unless you're a Republican like Reagan or Bush Jr., that is.

[gateley]

5. That explains it -- didn't know that. What's the excuse for Rahm?

Sorry. Couldn't resist that one. :evilgrin:

[boppers]

6. The Rahm excuse: Sacrifice ideological purity for actually getting into power and changing things.

Sometimes I wonder if I'm the only person on this board who learned what a "Pyhrric victory" was in grade school.