Can I Get a Witness (List)?

Yes I can.

Yesterday, the Obstructionist Democratic members of the Senate Judiciary Committee announced their list of witnesses who will give testimony during Judge Alito's confirmation hearings.

In addition to a lineup of Constitutional law experts and a couple of kooked-out causeheads, the panels include witnesses sure to address some fave topics among the Alito-opposers, including the Vanguard case recusal, labor law, the Princeton affirmative action flap, and civil rights, civil rights, civil rights.

Looks like the opposition agenda will boil down to abortion, civil rights, Presidential power, and judicial ethics.

I'll be in Washington Monday through Wednesday, blogging the first three days of the hearings on site, so check in for up-to-the-grandstanding-minute coverage.

Click the Continue Reading link for expanded biographies for each witness.

PANEL ONE

Erwin Chemerinsky
Duke University Law School Professor.  Former DOJ attorney.

Michael J. Gerhardt
UNC Law School Professor.  Clinton White House consultant on the Supreme Court nomination of Stephen Breyer.

Samuel Issacharoff
NYU Law School Professor. Scholar of voting rights and civil procedure.

Goodwin Liu
UC Berkeley Law School Professor. Expertise in Constitutional law, civil rights, Supreme Court, and education. Clerked for Justice Ginsburg.

Beth Nolan
Partner at Crowell & Moring, focus on constitutional and public policy. Former counsel to President Clinton. Former Deputy Attorney General.

Laurence H. Tribe
Harvard Law School Professor.  Constitutional law expert and prolific author. Argued before the Supreme Court over 33 times.  Clerk to Justice Potter Stewart in the 1967 Term.

PANEL TWO

Rep. Charles Gonzalez (D-TX)
Member of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce. Chair of the Hispanic Caucus Civil Rights Task Force.

Reginald M. Turner, Jr.
President of the National Bar Association (NBA).  Partner in a Detroit law firm, practicing labor and employment law and governmental relations.

PANEL THREE

Fred Gray
Senior partner at Gray, Langford, Sapp, McGowan, Gray & Nathanson.  Civil rights attorney who represented Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King.

Kate Michelman
Former president of the National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League (NARAL being the group that suggested Chief Justice Roberts supported the bombing of abortion clinics).

Ronald S. Sullivan, Jr.
Yale Law School Professor.  Expertise in criminal law, criminal procedure, and legal ethics.

PANEL FOUR

Amanda Frost
American University Law School Assistant Professor. Expertise in civil procedure and the federal courts.

John G.S. Flym
Retired Professor at Northeastern Law School.  Expertise in professional responsibility, criminal procedure, and criminal advocacy.  Counsel to Shantee Maharaj, plaintiff in Vanguard case ruled on by Judge Alito.

Stephen R. Dujack
Editor of the magazine Environmental Forum.  Recent writings have covered Judge Samuel Alito’s membership in the Concerned Alumni of Princeton (CAP).  Some commentary on and links to Dujack's radical anti-eating ravings are here.

---

Democrat Witness List For Samuel Alito Confirmation Hearings
Full Biographies

PANEL ONE

Erwin Chemerinsky

Erwin Chemerinsky is the Alston & Bird Professor of Law and Professor of Political Science at Duke University Law School.  Professor Chemerinsky joined the Duke faculty in July, 2004 after 21 years at the University of Southern California Law School, where he was the Sydney M. Irmas Professor of Public Interest Law, Legal Ethics, and Political Science.  Professor Chemerinsky also taught law at DePaul College of Law from 1980 to 1983.  Prior to teaching law, Professor Chemerinsky served as a trial attorney at the United States Department of Justice, and at Dobrovir, Oakes & Gebhardt in Washington, D.C.  Mr. Chemerinsky has authored several books and hundreds of law review articles. In April 2005, he was named by Legal Affairs as one of “the top 20 legal thinkers in America.” Professor Chemerinsky received a B.S. from Northwestern University and a J.D. from Harvard Law School. 

Michael J. Gerhardt

Michael Gerhardt is the Samuel Ashe Distinguished Professor of Constitutional Law at the University of North Carolina School of Law.  Prior to joining the faculty of the Law School this summer, Mr. Gerhardt taught for more than a decade at William & Mary Law School.  He is the author of several books, including the second editions of The Federal Impeachment Process: A Constitutional and Historical Analysis (University of Chicago Press) and The Federal Appointments Process (Duke University Press). In 1993, Mr. Gerhardt served as a special consultant to the White House on the nomination of Stephen Breyer to the United States Supreme Court.  More recently, he testified before the Senate Rules and Judiciary Committees on the constitutionality of the filibuster.  Professor Gerhardt received a B.A. from Yale University in 1978, an M.Sc. from the London School of Economics and his J.D. from the University of Chicago in 1982. 

Samuel Issacharoff

Samuel Issacharoff is the Bonnie and Richard Reiss Professor of Constitutional Law at New York University School of Law.  He has authored several scholarly works that focus on voting rights and civil procedure.  Prior to joining NYU's faculty, he taught at Columbia Law School and the University of Texas School of Law.  Professor Issacharoff received his B.A. from Binghamton University in 1975 and a J.D. from Yale Law School in 1983. 

Goodwin Liu

Goodwin Liu is an Assistant Professor of Law at the University of California, Berkeley, Boalt Hall. His primary areas of expertise are constitutional law, civil rights, the Supreme Court, and education policy. He has published widely on these topics in law reviews and general media. Before joining the Boalt faculty in 2003, Professor Liu was an appellate litigator at O'Melveny & Myers in Washington, D.C. He served as a law clerk for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg during the October 2000 term and for Judge David Tatel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit from 1998 to 1999.  Professor Liu serves on the board of directors of the ACLU of Northern California and the American Constitution Society in Washington.  Professor Liu is a Rhodes Scholar and received his B.S. from Stanford University in 1991, an M.A. from Oxford University in 1993 and his J.D. from Yale Law School in 1998. 

Beth Nolan

Beth Nolan is partner in Crowell & Moring LLP’s Litigation Group where she has a broad-based practice that includes a focus on constitutional and public policy issues. Prior to joining the firm, Ms. Nolan served in the White House as Counsel to the President from 1999-2001, where she was responsible for overseeing all legal matters for President Clinton and the White House staff. She served as Deputy Assistant Attorney General from 1996 to 1999 and Assistant Attorney General-designate from 1997 to 1999 in the Office of Legal Counsel, U.S. Department of Justice.  She served in the White House as Associate Counsel to the President from 1993 to 1995.  Ms. Nolan was a law clerk for the Honorable Collins J. Seitz of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.  She received he undergraduate degree from Scripps College and a J.D. magna cum laude from Georgetown in 1980. 

Laurence H. Tribe

Laurence Tribe is the Carl M. Loeb University Professor at Harvard University and Professor of Constitutional Law at Harvard Law School.  Throughout his professional career, Professor Tribe has authored over 250 publications on many different subject areas of American law and is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.  He is generally recognized as one of the foremost constitutional law experts in the world, has helped write the constitutions of several nations, and has argued before the U.S. Supreme Court over thirty-three times.  Professor Tribe served as law clerk to Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart in the 1967 Term and is the author, among many other books, of American Constitutional Law, the most frequently cited textbook in that field.  Professor Tribe received an A.B. summa cum laude from Harvard College in 1962, a J.D. from Harvard Law School magna cum laude in 1966, and numerous honorary degrees since that time. 

PANEL TWO

The Hon. Charles A. Gonzalez (D-TX)

Representative Gonzalez was first elected to the United States House of Representatives in November of 1998. He is the Representative for the 20th District of Texas.  He is a member of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce. Since 1999, Congressman Gonzalez has served as a Texas Regional Whip for the Democratic Caucus and as Chair of the Hispanic Caucus Civil Rights Task Force. In the 107th Congress, the Congressman developed and was selected to Chair the Hispanic Judiciary Initiative for the Congressional Hispanic Caucus.

Reginald M. Turner, Jr.

In 2004, Reginald Turner was elected as President of the National Bar Association (NBA).  Due to strong nationwide support, Turner ran unopposed in what is typically a vigorously contested election.  Aside from serving President of the NBA, he is also a partner in the Detroit law firm Clark Hill and has practiced labor and employment law and governmental relations for over 15 years. Moreover, Mr. Turner has served as President of the Michigan State Bar association, as a White House Fellow, as a Special Assistant to the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, and as a Judicial Law Clerk to the Hon. Dennis W. Archer of the Michigan State Supreme Court. Aside from his professional obligations, Mr. Turner is very active in numerous public services and in civic and charitable organizations.  Mr. Turner received a B.S. from Wayne State University and a J.D. from the University of Michigan Law School

PANEL THREE

Fred Gray

Fred Gray is senior partner at Gray, Langford, Sapp, McGowan, Gray & Nathanson.  He is a veteran civil rights attorney whose legal career began in the midst of America's modern day civil rights movement.  Mr. Gray began his legal career as a solo practitioner shortly after law school.  At age twenty-four, he represented Rosa Parks, who had refused to give up her seat to a white man on a city bus; the action that initiated the Montgomery Bus Boycott.  He was also Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s first civil rights lawyer.  In 2004, Fred D. Gray received the ABA Thurgood Marshall Award for his remarkable contributions to the advancement of civil rights.  Mr. Gray is a graduate of the Nashville Christian Institute, Alabama State University and Case Western Reserve. 

Kate Michelman

Before stepping down in 2004, Kate Michelman served as president of the National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League (NARAL) Pro-Choice America for over 18 years. Prior to joining NARAL in 1985, Ms. Michelman was executive director of Planned Parenthood in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, where she expanded the range of reproductive health services available in the area. She also trained medical students and residents in child development as a Clinical Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychiatry at Pennsylvania State University School of Medicine. 

Ronald S. Sullivan, Jr.

Ronald Sullivan Jr. is an Associate Clinical Professor of Law and Supervising Attorney at Yale Law School.  His areas of expertise include criminal law, criminal procedure, and legal ethics. After graduating from law school, Professor Sullivan spent a year in Nairobi, Kenya as a Visiting Attorney for the Law Society of Kenya.  In that capacity, he sat on a committee charged with drafting a new constitution for Kenya.  Professor Sullivan has also served as a staff attorney, general counsel, and director of the Public Defender Service for the District of Columbia (PDS).  He received a B.A. from Morehouse College in 1989 and a J.D. from Harvard in 1994. 

PANEL FOUR

Amanda Frost

Amanda Frost is an Assistant Professor of Law at American University’s Washington College of Law.  Her areas of specialization include Civil Procedure and the Federal Courts. She has published several law review articles on these topics. As a staff attorney at Public Citizen Litigation Group, Professor Frost litigated cases before the U.S. Supreme Court, federal courts of appeals, federal district courts, and state supreme courts.  She has also served as a consultant to the Shanghai Municipal Government in drafting open government legislation and was a Panelist at the 2005 American Bar Association’s Section of Administrative Law and Regulatory Practice conference entitled: Administrative Law and Regulatory Practice Institute; Making Agency Law Through Rulemaking.  Professor Frost received an A.B. from Harvard College in 1993 and a J.D. from Harvard Law School in 1997. 

John G.S. Flym
John G.S. Flym recently retired as a professor of Law at Northeastern University School of Law.  Professor Flym taught Professional Responsibility and Advanced Criminal Procedure, and directs the Criminal Advocacy Clinic.  Professor Flym served as counsel to Ms. Shantee Maharaj, the plaintiff in the 2002 case where Judge Samuel A. Alito Jr. ruled in favor of the Vanguard mutual fund company at a time when he owned more than $390,000 in Vanguard funds.  Judge Alito ruled in the case after he had made a pledge to the Senate in 1990 during his confirmation process that he would recuse himself from cases involving Vanguard. Professor Flym received a B.S. from Columbia University in 1961 and an LLB from Harvard.

Stephen R. Dujack

Stephen R. Dujack is the editor of an environmental magazine in Washington and a freelance writer.  Mr. Dujack has appeared many times as a guest columnist in publications throughout the country.  Some of his recent writings have covered Judge Samuel Alito’s membership in the Concerned Alumni of Princeton (CAP).  Formed in 1972, CAP has been publicly criticized for its policies opposing Princeton's decision to admit women and minorities.  When applying for a job in the Reagan/Meese Justice Department in 1985, Judge Alito touted his membership in the conservative group. CAP’s positions and tactics were criticized in the years following its founding by other alumni, including former Senator Bill Bradley and Senator Bill Frist, who is now the Republican Majority Leader. Mr. Dujack, a 1976 graduate of Princeton, first wrote about CAP for the Princeton Alumni Weekly in the 1980s and then again in 2005.