“Battle Over Future Supreme Court Nominees (ABC News)” plus 1 more

Battle Over Future Supreme Court Nominees (ABC News)

Posted: 22 Mar 2010 09:29 AM PDT

There is a Supreme Court battle brewing on Capitol Hill -- despite the fact that there are currently no vacancies on the high court.

On Wednesday, the Senate Judiciary Committee will hold hearings to consider the nomination of Berkeley law professor Goodwin Liu to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.

The hearing is expected to be contentious, showcasing the differences in judicial philosophy between the parties, with conservative senators arguing that Liu's record on divisive issues puts him outside the mainstream of judicial thinking.

Some believe Republicans are opposed to Liu's nomination because they fear President Obama may be grooming Liu for a future Supreme Court vacancy.

"His nomination seems to me to represent the apex of judicial activist philosophy," said Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., the ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee. "His views represent a fundamental change in our understanding of the role in society of the court."

"As a constitutional law professor, Liu has an unusually long record of public statements that Republicans will attempt to paint as outside the mainstream," said professor Stephen I. Vladeck of American University.

"But given Liu's young age and ethnicity, I suspect the Republicans are also worried that he will be a tantalizing prospect for the Supreme Court in a few years, a possibility that would only be bolstered by a stint on the Court of Appeals."

Liu, 39, is the son of Taiwanese immigrants.

For the first time in Supreme Court history, all the current sitting justices have previously served as federal circuit judges.

"This is a test case," said Vladek. "Most of the early Obama nominees were tried-and-true moderate judges with extensive experience on district courts. While Liu is not the first non-judge to be nominated by the president, he is probably the most prominent liberal academic."

Jennifer Meinig, legislative counsel for the liberal group Alliance for Justice, says Republicans are nervous because "Liu will appeal to a wide audience because he has spent his career advocating for the right of equal justice for all, not a select, privileged few."

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Spirit, union to collaborate in talks (The Wichita Eagle)

Posted: 22 Mar 2010 10:02 PM PDT

BY MOLLY McMILLIN

The Wichita Eagle

Labor negotiations between Spirit AeroSystems and the Machinists union open today, and leaders have adopted a new philosophy in their approach.

They're approaching the talks with trust, cooperation and openness, union and company leaders say.

And they plan to work for a contract that will be able to adapt when times change.

Keeping Spirit healthy long-term and keeping its team of employees in place and working together are key to its future, said Spirit chairman and CEO Jeff Turner.

"Clearly a cooperative, peaceful relationship between labor and management is very important for the long-term health of the company," Turner said.

The union recognizes that Spirit operates in a global environment and must plan ahead for the next five or 10 years.

"What's worked in the past may not work today," said Machinists international president Tom Buffenbarger.

The current contract expires June 25. It's the first full contract negotiations since Spirit became a company in 2005 after Boeing sold its Wichita commercial aircraft facilities to Onex Corp.

The five-year contract, however, allowed for negotiations on wages, benefits and some other economic issues to be renegotiated in 2008.

During this round of talks, both sides said they'll forge new ground.

In the existing labor contract model for aerospace, agreements expire every three years. During talks, the company and union try to predict the future, but business and the economy are dynamic. As the recession has proven, things can change quickly.

Rigid contracts leave companies without the flexibility to adapt.

When business is good, employees should share in that as well, they said.

Both parties are committed to putting "that flexibility into play," Turner said.

The question, Buffenbarger said, is that instead of a "fixed hard-and- fast rule book... is there a way we can craft something that's more of a living document?"

Giving that flexibility helps improve job security because it allows the company to adapt and respond to changing conditions, they said.

Current contracts contain a lot of conditions about what happens during layoffs.

But they don't address actions a company could take to try to stem them from happening, Turner said.

"There's often a lot of things you can do before you do it (lay people off)," he said.

From the union's perspective, in the past, the union would "sit back and wait until the company said, 'We're going to have layoffs,' " Buffenbarger said. But the union should instead be working with the company to minimize the damage.

How the new philosophy will translate into the terms of a contract is yet to be worked out.

Dick Gephardt, a former congressman who serves on Spirit's board of directors, noted that Spirit came through one of the worst recessions in decades better than many companies.

"This management and this union have already worked together in tough times," Gephardt said. "I feel optimistic about our ability to figure this out."

The first step, is that "both sides must get over the hurdle and start trusting one another," Buffenbarger said. "Somewhere in this exchange of information, things will come together."

Reach Molly McMillin at 316-269-6708 or mmcmillin@wichitaeagle.com.

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Philosophy

Tuesday, March 23, 2010