What, Pigmeat Markham wasn’t available?
Senate Republican Leader Mitch “Root-‘n-Branch’’ McConnell, fulfilling his primary duty as consigliere to an addled wanna-be king has, as always, convinced President Donald J. Trump, aka President Extremely Stable Genius, aka President Great and Unmatched Wisdom, to nominate U.S. District Judge Justin Walker, of the Western District of Kentucky, to fill an open seat on the U.S. Circuit Court for the District of Columbia, generally recognized as the nation’s second most powerful panel, behind only the U.S. Supreme Court.
The nomination came before Walker, of Louisville, had completed six months in the lower court job, where he has proved distinguished, but not in a good way. Walker, at 38 and a member of the right-wing Federalist Society, offers all of the qualifications Moscow Mitch, a fellow Louisvillian, is praying for – young enough to ruin the federal judiciary for generations and a partisan hack who can be counted on to view the written law as useless when necessary.
Walker, to be fair, is not a dope, being a Harvard man, which may stand as progress when compared to some of the others McConnell has placed on the bench. He managed to wrangle his way on the court despite a “not qualified’’ judgment from the American Bar Association, which noted that he had less than 10 years practicing law and, more significantly, never so much as served as an attorney in state district court representing someone appealing a parking ticket — he “has never tried a case as lead or co-counsel, whether civil or criminal,” according to the ABA.
High standards indeed. But he punches all the right political buttons.
It didn’t take Walker long to establish why he isn’t qualified to serve in his present capacity and certainly shouldn’t be considered for quick advancement.
You may have heard there’s this thing called COVID-19, a coronavirus floating around that requires families to remain separated from society in an effort to halt its spread and forcing husbands and wives to talk to one another against their better judgment.
Regardless, state and local governments, including in Kentucky and Louisville, have sought to prohibit large gatherings lest the bug persist, with better than expected results thus far. One area that many local and state officials have sought to tamp down is church services, encouraging ministers to preach the word via the internet rather than pulling the flock together in the church building.
It’s a hard sell in some spots, although it does appear most congregations are complying. But there are as usual outliers, even though evidence exists that church gatherings have contributed to the spread of the virus – in California it was reported that 70 congregants in a single church had come down with the bug.
And, of course, it’s nothing to sneeze at – as of this writing 600,000 individuals nationwide have contracted the virus and 26,000 have died.
With this in mind, Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer sought to put the kibosh on on-site Easter church gatherings, fearing the lethal consequences. On April 9 Fischer warned that he would not permit churches “to gather either in person or in any kind of drive-through capacity.”
Frankly, that declaration could be viewed as the mayor overstepping his authority. Perhaps realizing same, Fischer returned the following day to say no arrests were anticipated, that police would simply be handing out leaflets providing information about the potential dangers of large gatherings and writing down license plate numbers of those in attendance in case of an outbreak and the need to place participants in quarantine.
Fair enough. But one congregation, the On Fire Christian Center, filed suit in federal court seeking an injunction that would permit it to hold a drive-in service on Easter with participants remaining in their vehicles.
Walker signed the injunction on the Saturday before Easter – even though the city of Louisville had made it clear that no arrests or attempts to block any such church celebrations were planned. In fact, he signed the injunction ex parte without even consulting with the city to determine its intent. Attorneys for the city attempted twice to contact the judge on the matter to no avail.
Now that’s bad enough – approving an illegitimate injunction without hearing from both sides of the dispute. What made it worse was the 22-page decision, which all the world sounded more like a diatribe on Pat Robertson’s 700 Club than a well-reasoned determination by an unbiased arbiter.
Walker wrote: “On Holy Thursday, an American mayor criminalized the communal celebration of Easter. That sentence is one that this Court never expected to see outside the pages of a dystopian novel, or perhaps the pages of The Onion. But two days ago, citing the need for social distancing during the current pandemic, Louisville’s Mayor Greg Fischer ordered Christians not to attend Sunday services, even if they remained in their cars to worship – and even though it’s Easter.
“The Mayor’s decision is stunning.
“And it is, ‘beyond all reason,’ unconstitutional.”
Now let us all agree that government placing any restrictions on religious practices is a touchy subject – although it does appear that many Christians are less horrified by worship limitations when Muslims are involved. The First Amendment to the Constitution does hold, after all, that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” That same amendment guarantees the right to assembly.
The NKyTribune’s Washington columnist Bill Straub served 11 years as the Frankfort Bureau chief for The Kentucky Post. He also is the former White House/political correspondent for Scripps Howard News Service. A member of the Kentucky Journalism Hall of Fame, he currently resides in Silver Spring, Maryland, and writes frequently about the federal government and politics. Email him at williamgstraub@gmail.com
But the courts have held that rights aren’t limitless – the First Amendment also guarantees free speech and a free press but establishes restrictions on issues like libel. In 1993 Congress adopted the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, finding that federal law could not “substantially burden a person’s exercise of religion” unless the government proves the law furthers a “compelling governmental interest” and that it has been implemented in a way that is “least restrictive” to religious practices.
An argument can be made that halting the progress of a dangerous virus that could affect non-churchgoers, as well as churchgoers, meets that test. But in this instance it really doesn’t matter – Louisville was taking no steps to halt the religious proceedings, which Walker would have known had he asked.
What he did instead was write a jeremiad against government involvement in religion that sauntered on aimlessly ad infinitum, with no purpose other than, apparently, to bolster his bona fides among members of the praise the lord club, thus assuring his swift and definitive confirmation to a higher court.
Walker concluded: “But for the men and women of On Fire, Christ’s sacrifice isn’t about the logic of this world. Nor is their Easter Sunday celebration. The reason they will be there for each other and their Lord is the reason they believe He was and is there for us. For them, for all believers, ‘it isn’t a matter of reason; finally, it’s a matter of love.’”
Of course, in this day and at this time, love might not be the only thing you’d be spreading at a communal worship, something the good judge failed to consider.
For an officer of the court to assert that an “American mayor,” presumably Fischer, “criminalized the communal celebration of Easter” without first ferreting out the facts is scurrilous at best and, seemingly, intentionally defamatory. And this is the boy ol’ Root-‘n-Branch wants on the DC Circuit.
This is the thing you get when you place a polemicist on the federal bench instead of someone who engages in reason and logic. Walker is the sort of dude Mitch dreams of, and he’s filling the federal bench with the like.
Walker likely will be confirmed for the DC Circuit post haste, although he might get roughed up a bit during his confirmation hearing, and deservedly so. All he needs is 50 votes and, as the Republican members of the upper chamber have established time and again, they have as much collective guts as 53 fileted crappies.
McConnell’s legacy: The quality of the judiciary sinks to an all time low. Unthinkable that Walker would even be considered for the DC Circuit.