Recently, CFJ was featured in an interview by The Associated Press, which also appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, U.S. News, The Houston Chronicle, and many other news outlets. Additional interviews and commentary can be found in The Wall Street Journal, The Daily Signal, Dallas Weekly, Harvard Political Review, Washington Internet Daily, Communications Daily, American Family Radio, OneNewsNow, and elsewhere.
Links and quotes can be found below:
Interviews & Commentary
The Associated Press: Kavanaugh’s concern is that agencies are assuming powers that belong to Congress and the judiciary, said Ashley Baker, director of public policy for the Committee for Justice, a conservative legal and policy advocacy organization.
She said Kavanaugh’s nomination was a "big step in the right direction" of establishing the authority of courts to interpret federal laws instead of giving agencies a blank check when laws are ambiguous.
Kavanaugh — often in dissent — has rejected a wide variety of federal regulations and sought to rein in agencies, according to an Associated Press review of his 12 years on the D.C. appeals court, along with other writings and speeches. He also has displayed skepticism of independent federal agencies that are not answerable to the president...
(Note: This interview appeared in hundred of news outlets nationwide, most notably, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, Houston Chronicle, Las Vegas Sun, U.S. News & World Report, ABC News, The Miami Herald, Seattle Times, NBC News, CBS News, San Francisco Chronicle, Alabama Today, News & Observer, Star Tribune, and Atlanta Journal-Constitution.)
The Daily Signal: Filling those vacancies in his first term is possible if Republicans keep the Senate, said Curt Levey, president of the Committee for Justice, a conservative group that monitors judicial appointments.
“Remaking the 9th Circuit would mean less work for the Supreme Court, because the Supreme Court often reverses its decisions,” Levey told The Daily Signal. “The 9th Circuit has often been in the resistance. If you have more originalists, district court judges wouldn’t be as likely to issue certain rulings.”
...The undoing of the Bounds nomination could push the Trump White House to make further concessions with Democrats on 9th Circuit nominations, the Committee for Justice’s Levey said.“Stopping Bounds has larger implications with regard to stumbling blocks on the 9th Circuit,” Levey said, adding:
"Democrats have not defeated a [Trump] circuit court nominee on ideological grounds. This shows they can, even without a filibuster. Democrats will be encouraged by this. The question is whether it’s doable to fill these positions without consultation with Democratic senators."
...Blue slips—the Senate tradition requiring an endorsement from a state’s two senators before a confirmation vote is held—continues to stall nominees because the 9th Circuit includes so many blue states, Levey noted.
However, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and Judiciary Chairman Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, have discarded blue slips in some cases.“McConnell and Grassley don’t want to push too hard in doing away with the blue slip process altogether,” Levey said. “They just won’t allow it to be used in an unreasonable way...”
Harvard Political Review: Kavanaugh, by contrast, has demonstrated a relatively stable dedication to conservative ideology. According to The New York Times, Kavanaugh is more conservative than approximately 66 percent of all other current and former federal judges nominated since 1980. In recent years, Kavanaugh upheld an abortion ban for undocumented immigrant minors and dissented that a District of Columbia ordinance banning a majority of semi-automatic rifles was unconstitutional. Kavanaugh’s nomination, if successful, would thus give the Supreme Court a clear conservative tilt for “the first time since the 1930s,” Curt Levey, the president of the Committee for Justice, told The New York Times...
Washington Internet Daily: Committee for Justice Director-Public Policy Ashley Baker called Smith “an excellent addition to FTC leadership.” His experience at the intersection of privacy, data regulation and competition policy make him uniquely qualified, she emailed. "Projecting certain specific actions of companies or clients onto Smith’s qualification to serve in his new role on the FTC only prioritizes political posturing over much-needed experience." The group, a "leading conservative voice on judicial appointments," seeks to address "constitutional involving innovative technologies," it says...
Dallas Weekly: Judge Kavanaugh, if confirmed, would give conservatives a legal stronghold for decades. The fight over this nomination began only moments after the announcement.
OneNewsNow: It's not Capitol Hill Democrats who are trying to find dirt by looking into the actions of Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh's wife – it's those in the press ... and that, says the president of The Committee for Justice, is "playing dirty."
...Curt Levey, president of The Committee for Justice, says that's out of line. "They're playing dirty," he tells OneNewsNow, "and you'll notice that the Democrats in Congress are not demanding records involving his wife because they know it's not appropriate – but there are no such limits on the press."
...They're desperate, because there really is no dirt in Kavanaugh's record," argues Levey. "They're just hoping against hope that they'll find something."
Levey is among more than 100 conservatives leaders comprising the Conservative Action Project, which released a July 18 letter strongly endorsing Kavanaugh and describing him as "very much in the mold of Justice [Antonin] Scalia."
Another name on the Times' list is the name "Starr," which Levey presumes means "Kenneth" – not Ringo.
"We'll have to let the American people be the judge of whether that's effective," he concludes. "I think at the end of the day they're just going to embarrass themselves if they try to go after her..."
(Note: This interview was originally broadcast by American Family Radio.)
Communications Daily: Interview with Committee for Justice director of public policy Ashley Baker in article, "GOP Senators Disassociate Themselves From Alex Jones, InfoWars." We will update this post with the text of the interview on Friday when it becomes available.
The Wall Street Journal: Committee for Justice president Curt Levey published an op-ed entitled "Why Should We Fear Russian Political Ads?" The article appeared online August 16 and in the print edition August 17.