Sounds like it’s a long opinion–93(!) pages–but it looks like the Bush administration suffered a serious smack down in federal district court. Here’s the media report on the court’s ruling that President Bush’s aids must in fact honor Congressional subpoenas and appear and testify in response.

The district court’s ruling by Judge John Bates is a major blow to the Bush administration’s unprecedented claims of executive power. According to the MSNBC report, Judge Bates found that the assertion of immunity was entirely unsupported by existing law.  I have not yet read the opinion, so I can’t confirm the accuracy.

Side note and a bit of a digression: President Bush appointed Judge Bates.  This is of no import to most of us who work in the justice system. My experience is that most judges–especially those on the federal bench–highly value judicial independence.  It’s a core value of great importance, as we want judges to decide hard questions without political calculations.  While I frequently disagree with how a judge decides a particular case or issue, the value of judicial independence remains important. Nice to know that Judge Bates is not reluctant to find against the man who appointed him. To me, that’s the essence of judicial integrity and independence.

Bad week for the Bush administration. We got a re-run of the hack job done by Monica Goodling earlier this week. And now this slap down.

David Sugerman

I’m not a Bill Sizemore fan. My view is that he has taken Oregon’s treasured initiative system and turned it into a mockery for his personal aggrandizement and financial gain. So I was amused to read this account of how Judge Janice Wilson found him in contempt of court yesteday.

As most people know, “contempt” is actually a techical legal term.  So Judge Wilson’s findings ocurred after a hearing on the merits. It’s probably just coincidence that many people held Mr. Sizemore in contempt well before the news report.

The backstory is that an Oregon jury found Mr. Sizemore’s Taxpayers United PAC responsible for damages due to his illegal campaign practices (racketeering, forging signatures, falsifying campaign expenditure reports). The court entered a judgment against Mr. Sizemore’s organization. Mr. Sizemore appealed, and he lost.  It’s a long opinion, but here’s a copy from the Oregon Court of Appeals that affirmed the bulk of the trial judge’s rulings. That case is apparently on appeal to the Oregon Supreme Court.

Mr. Sizemore apparently decided that he could play a shell game with his money so that unions and the state could not collect on its judgment. And that’s where he ran into trouble in Judge Wilson’s courtroom.

Those of us who know Judge Wilson will tell you that she is smart and tough. She doesn’t suffer fools lightly, and she really dislikes game playing. Bad draw for Mr. Sizemore, I imagine.  In the article, Mr. Sizemore complained that Judge Wilson upheld “a blatantly unconstitutional ruling” by another judge. The answer to that is an appeal. So far, Mr. Sizemore has lost that argument, though who knows what will happen at the Oregon Supreme Court.

David Sugerman