Delay Continues on U.S. Judges

Chambliss, Isakson fail to return 'blue slips' on six judicial nominees despite reported compromise last year

R. Robin McDonald, Daily Report

January 29, 2014, 12:00 AM

More than a month after President Obama nominated six candidates to federal judicial posts in Georgia, the state's two Republican senators have yet to return "blue slips" signaling their approval to the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, a committee aide said.
 

As a result, the judiciary committee, which began holding hearings Jan. 8 on nominees from other states whose names the president submitted at the same time as the Georgia nominees—has not yet scheduled confirmation hearings for two nominees to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit and four nominees to the Northern District of Georgia trial court bench, according to the aide.

 

 

On Tuesday, the judiciary committee was holding confirmation hearings for six Arizona nominees to fill judicial posts that have been designated by the U.S. Administrative Office of Courts as emergency vacancies. Two of Georgia's district court seats have been designated as emergency vacancies.

 

 

U.S. Sens. Saxby Chambliss and Johnny Isakson have not signaled their approval of the list of Georgia judicial nominees even though the slate of six names was part of a compromise deal that the White House struck with them late last year.

 

 

On Tuesday, Isakson spokeswoman Lauren Culbertson said, "Senator Isakson believes that it is appropriate to allow the chairman and the ranking member on the Judiciary Committee to review the background investigation paperwork of the six nominees before he returns all six blue slips." Aides to Chambliss declined to comment Tuesday on the lack of action.

 

 

That package deal presumably was to have lifted a longtime hold the senators had placed on the president's nomination of Atlanta attorney Jill Pryor, a partner at Bondurant, Mixson & Elmore, to the Eleventh Circuit. Pryor was first nominated in February 2012 and renominated last year despite the senators' opposition.

 

 

The two senators previously had blocked Pryor's nomination by refusing to return the so-called blue slips to the Judiciary Committee—a senatorial courtesy that its chairman, Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., scrupulously observes.

 

 

Georgia lawyers familiar with the process have told the Daily Report that as part of the deal, Isakson and Chambliss also agreed to withdraw their objections to trial lawyer Leigh Martin May, a partner at Butler Wooten & Fryhofer whom they earlier had rejected as a nominee to the Northern District bench when she was recommended by Georgia's Democratic congressmen in 2009.

 

 

In return, the White House agreed to nominate U.S. District Chief Judge Julie Carnes—who was appointed to the federal bench by President George H.W. Bush—to the Eleventh Circuit, along with Pryor.

 

 

The White House also nominated Troutman Sanders attorney Mark Cohen, whose name the senators had put forth both as a candidate for the district court and as their preference over Pryor for the Eleventh Circuit; and two appointees of Republican Gov. Nathan Deal: Georgia Court of Appeals Judge Michael Boggs and DeKalb County State Court Judge Eleanor Ross.

 

 

The judiciary committee is still waiting for paperwork involving, among other things, an FBI background check on Ross, according to the committee aide. But Georgia's senators are free to return blue slips on the other nominees at their discretion, the aide said.

 

 

A blue slip refers to an opinion on a federal judicial nominee offered by that nominee's home-state senators. In addition to Pryor, Chambliss and Isakson also refused to return blue slips for attorney Natasha Perdew Silas, a public defender whom the president had nominated along with U.S. Magistrate Judge Linda Walker as part of an earlier package deal to fill two vacancies on Northern Georgia's District Court. The nominations of the two women, both African-Americans, were withdrawn by the president at the end of 2011.

 

 

The package deal of nominees has already sparked controversy in Georgia. U.S. Rep. David Scott, whose 13th District includes parts of Clayton, Cobb, Douglas, Fayette, Fulton and Henry counties, called the selection process "an abomination" and has written to Leahy asking for permission to testify that the candidates "are unrepresentative of the demographics and values of the state."

 

 

At a Dec. 23 news conference in Atlanta at which Scott appeared with fellow Congressional Democrats John Lewis and Hank Johnson, Lewis said that he, too, was prepared to testify at confirmation hearings.

 

 

A coalition of African-American lawyers and bar associations in Georgia also has asked for permission to testify in opposition to six nominees to the federal bench in Georgia at their confirmation hearings.

 

 

A Jan. 10 letter signed by former Fulton County Chief Superior Court Judge Thelma Wyatt Cummings Moore, Holland & Knight partner Charles Johnson, AT&T corporate attorney Suzanne Ockleberry and former Richmond County Superior Court Judge Bettianne Hart said the request was made because the White House ignored letters, emails, public protests and press conferences condemning the "secretive process" and "the lack of diversity in the slate of the proposed nominees as well as concerns with the fitness of some of the candidates slated for confirmation."

 

 

 

On Wednesday, Johnson said the coalition has heard no response from the Judiciary Committee to its request.

 

 

Richard Vining, an associate professor of political science at the University of Georgia, told the Daily Report that Leahy's strict adherence to the blue slip tradition is at variance with previous Judiciary Committee chairmen, including Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, and the late Sens. Strom Thurmond, R-S.C., and Edward Kennedy, D-Mass.

 

 

"When they were chairs, the standard was more about having meaningful consultation or good faith consultation with senators," Vining observed. The idea of "an absolute veto" by senators not of the president's party, while common in the Senate 50 years ago, had fallen into disuse. Leahy, he said, began putting new emphasis on blue slips after President George W. Bush was elected in 2000 as an apparent means of blocking some of the Republican president's more controversial nominees. But he has maintained the practice throughout the Obama administration, Vining said.

 

 

"I'm a little surprised, in reaching that hard-fought deal in which the administration caved, in many ways we're still stalled," Vining continued. "I'm a little surprised there is so little movement after fighting for years after who these people will be and winding up with people the Republicans clearly favor more than the Democratic House delegation does."

 

 

"Traditionally," Vining added, "if the president and the senators are from a different party, the president often looked to people from his own party for advice about official nominees. These out-of-party senators having such a powerful role in this process is a little bit unusual historically."

The Latest Print Edition of Southern Changes is Now Available!

Winter 2013 Issue - Features Include:

Emancipation Day Reconsidered

A Call to Action on Judicial Diversity

A Long an Painful Summer for Racial Justice Issues

Francois Hamlin and Randal Jelks Receive Lillian Smith Book Awards

To request a hard copy, contact the Southern Regional Council at charles.johnson@hklaw.com or deborah.jennings@hklaw.com.

Politifact: David Scott's Claim of Secrecy in Picking Judicial Nominees is "Mostly True."

"President Barack Obama’s judicial appointments for Georgia and the region were drafted in secret and not vetted by legal groups among the president’s supporters."

 

The Truth-O-Meter Says: Mostly True

 

It’s said the wheels of justice move slowly. So, too, is the process of approving the names of some judicial nominees.

The tortoise-like pace of appointing judges to serve on two key courts has resulted in rare public criticism of the Obama administration by some leading Georgia Democrats and civil rights leaders.

 

One such critic is U.S. Rep. David Scott, a Democrat who represents portions of metro Atlanta.

 

"It is an abomination that these nominees for lifetime appointment were drafted in secret, not vetted by any legal groups among the president’s supporters," Scott wrote in a letter to U.S. Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Scott and others, who’ve supported President Barack Obama on so many issues, felt blindsided by the White House, particularly since the nominees were reportedly chosen after consultation with Georgia’s two Republican senators.

We wondered if the congressman’s claim was correct.

U.S. District Court Judge Julie Carnes was the White House’s pick to serve on the Atlanta-based 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, joining pending 11th Circuit nominee Jill Pryor, an Atlanta attorney.

 

To fill four Northern District of Georgia slots, Obama nominated Atlanta attorney Leigh Martin May, DeKalb County State Court Judge Eleanor Ross, Georgia Court of Appeals Judge Michael Boggs and Atlanta attorney Mark Cohen.

The critics say there’s not enough racial diversity among the nominees. They say some nominees have previously sided against the interests of the civil rights community.

 

The Senate confirms presidential nominees, and the White House reportedly had trouble getting some names past the two senators for nomination.

"I don’t think (Obama) will nominate anyone without home-state senator support," said Richmond College of Law professor Carl Tobias, who studies the judicial nomination process and has paid close attention to what’s going on in Georgia.

 

U.S. Sens. Johnny Isakson and Saxby Chambliss had held up Obama nominees for years, until a deal struck several months ago finally broke the impasse, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has reported. A spokeswoman for Chambliss declined comment, referring us to a December statement by both senators thanking the White House for its cooperation through the nomination process. The White House press office and Isakson did not respond to requests for comment.

Scott’s chief of staff, Michael Andel, explained that the White House did not discuss the nominations with Georgia Democrats serving in Congress, which is why the congressman described the process as secret. Andel said the White House did not run the names by organizations that typically vet potential nominees, such as the Georgia Association of Black Women Attorneys (GABWA) or the Gate City Bar Association, a prominent African-American attorney group based in Atlanta.

 

Veteran Atlanta attorney and former six-term congressman George "Buddy" Darden chaired a 13-member committee in 2009 that was created by Georgia Democrats in Congress to submit nominees to Obama to the federal bench. The committee took input from GABWA and other groups, he said. A year later, the AJC reported that none of the vacancies had been filled.

Why not? Chambliss and Isakson weren’t thrilled with the names being submitted, according to news accounts.

 

In 2013, after Obama’s re-election, Darden said the White House rebuffed their efforts for a meeting. The White House worked with the two Georgia senators and Kenneth S. Canfield, a major Obama donor and Atlanta attorney, according to Darden and some news accounts.

"(The White House) wouldn’t let the congressmen know what was happening," said Darden, who served in Congress as a Democrat.

 

Canfield declined comment.

Charles S. Johnson III, a former president of the Gate City Bar Association, gave us a detailed account of negotiations with the Obama administration. Negotiators met with the White House in mid-2010, he said, and the Obama administration made two nominations to fill vacancies on the North Georgia court. Chambliss and Isakson, though, did not support the candidates, Johnson said.

 

In August 2013, when rumors surfaced that a deal was in the works, the Gate City Bar Association and other groups wrote Obama to complain they were being left out, said Johnson, a partner at Holland & Knight, one of the most influential law firms in Georgia.

The White House met with some Georgia Democrats serving in Congress in October. Andel said names of specific judicial nominees weren’t discussed at the meeting. Johnson said his group and others tried, to no avail, to get a meeting with Chambliss and Isakson.

 

"There was no public process for vetting these nominations before they were announced, unlike previous years, in which the president and the senators typically sought input on judicial nominees from leaders and organizations in the community to be affected," Johnson said via email. "I personally met with one of the individuals who was rumored to be part of brokering this package deal. In my meeting I specifically asked whether it would be possible to seek community input regarding this package. I was told that there was no interest in seeking community input, and that those involved in putting this deal together were aware that the deal would draw significant community opposition."

Sarah Binder, a senior fellow at the nonpartisan Brookings Institution, said the White House has no formal process when it comes to judicial nominations. Some states, she said, have commissions to vet candidates. Most will seek input from the state’s U.S. senators.

 

Tobias said he thinks Scott’s claim is correct, but he agreed the spoils of victory for U.S. senators include having input on judicial nominations.

"It’s not the best way to proceed, but it may be the only way to proceed," Tobias said.

 

To sum up, Congressman Scott claimed he and other Georgia Democrats serving in Congress were left in the dark when the White House came up with the names of nominees to serve on two key benches. He also claimed groups who traditionally support Obama weren’t in the loop as well.

This was tough to fact-check because some key people and groups involved in the process wouldn’t talk about it.

But it appears Scott and the other Democrats weren’t consulted when the White House came up with its nominees. While some groups weren’t consulted, it does appear some Obama supporters did offer some input.

Our rating: Mostly True.

Coalition Asks to Testify Against Georgia Nominees in Senate

R. Robin McDonald

Daily Report, January 17, 2014, 12:00 AM

A coalition of African-American lawyers and bar associations in Georgia has asked the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee chairman for permission to testify in opposition to six nominees to the federal bench in Georgia at their confirmation hearings.

In a Jan. 10 letter, Advocacy for Action asked Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., to allow the organization's representatives to testify against the nominees—four for U.S. District Court judgeships in the Northern District of Georgia and two seats on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit.

The letter—signed by former Fulton County Chief Superior Court Judge Thelma Wyatt Moore, Holland & Knight partner Charles Johnson, AT&T corporate attorney Suzanne Ockleberry and former Richmond County Superior Court Judge Bettianne Hart—said the request was being made because the White House ignored letters, emails, public protests and press conferences "condemning the secretive process to select these nominees." President Barack Obama also paid little heed to "the lack of diversity in the slate of the proposed nominees as well as concerns with the fitness of some of the candidates slated for confirmation," they wrote.

The bar associations' letter said that they had "no choice but to appear before the Senate to provide live testimony against the nomination of at least two of the [Northern District] nominees—Judge Michael P. Boggs [of the Georgia Court of Appeals] and attorney Mark Cohen [a Troutman Sanders partner]."

The other nominees for the Northern District bench are Leigh Martin May, a partner at Butler Wooten Fryhofer, and DeKalb County State Court Judge Eleanor Ross. The nominees for two open seats on the Eleventh Circuit are U.S. District Court Chief Judge Julie Carnes and Jill Pryor, a partner at Atlanta's Bondurant, Mixson & Elmore.

Florida Judge Not Renominated For Federal Bench

The White House has yanked the federal judicial nomination of Miami-Dade Circuit Judge William Thomas, who is black and openly gay, following opposition from U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio.

John Pacenti

 

Daily Business Review, 2014-01-08 10:30:00 PM

 

Attorneys and lawmakers expressed outrage and disappointment Wednesday that the White House withdrew the federal judicial nomination of Miami-Dade Circuit Judge William Thomas, who is black and openly gay.

The nomination was blocked by U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, a Miami Republican. Thomas, who was nominated in November 2012, was the only one of 54 pending judicial candidates not renominated by the Obama administration this week. There are currently 89 vacancies on the federal district and appellate courts. Black judges currently make up 8.3 percent of the federal judiciary.

Thomas was on the bench Wednesday and did not return a call for comment by deadline.

Rubio initially supported Thomas after interviewing him for an open federal bench position in the Southern District of Florida but reversed himself last summer.

"The message that it sends is chilling and shocking, not only to the gay community but to the black community, that Senator Rubio and the Tea Party have such power that they would be able to block a qualified black gay judge with one voice," said attorney C. Chad Cronon, president of the Central Florida Gay and Lesbian Association in Orlando.

Miami attorney Lida Rodriguez-Taseff, a member of Duane Morris' national diversity and inclusion committee, said, "This is another example of the fact we are permitting extreme and discriminatory views to color how we select judges." She said she was discouraged and troubled that the Obama administration is "caving on an issue of such importance, which is the independence of the judiciary and the right of people to have their sexual orientation protected." 

Rubio cited two criminal cases handled by Thomas even though prosecutors in both cases urged him to support Thomas. Rubio stalled Thomas' nomination by refusing to submit a blue slip to the Senate Judiciary Committee, which would have allowed a vote. Rubio was not persuaded by a letter-writing and petition campaign on behalf of Thomas organized by South Florida attorneys.

'Unfortunate'

Coral Gables criminal defense attorney David Tucker collected 2,148 signatures on an electronic petition supporting Thomas. "We all get to ruminate on the politicization of the federal judicial nominating process," he said. "This is a tragedy, and I'm sad that this not only happened but we allowed it to happen. Whatever happened to doing the right thing?"

Asked about Thomas, Rubio's spokeswoman, Brooke Sammon, referred to a previous statement, saying, "The nomination of Judge Thomas has also been thoroughly reviewed, and Senator Rubio has determined that Thomas's record on the state court raises serious concerns about his fitness for a lifetime federal appointment."court raises serious concerns about his fitness for a lifetime federal appointment."

Rubio questioned Thomas' judicial temperament and willingness to impose appropriate criminal sentences. His office cited the sentencing of Michele Traverso, who received 22 months in prison followed by two years of house arrest for a hit-and-run accident that killed a bicyclist on Miami's Rickenbacker Causeway. The senator also noted Thomas wept when he sentenced Joel Lebron to death for a 2002 gang rape. 

Cronon said the criminal cases cited by Rubio are red herrings because any judge's record could be culled for outliers, and Rubio has repeatedly proven he is no friend of the black and gay communities.

Rubio also withheld a blue slip for months on another black judicial nominee, Nassau Circuit Judge Brian Davis, who waited nearly two years for confirmation in December.

The Wilkie D. Ferguson Jr. Bar Association, the Gwen S. Cherry Black Women Lawyers Association, the Haitian Lawyers Association and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People held a news conference last summer to call attention to Rubio's opposition to both black judges. Leigh-Ann Buchanan, president-elect of the Ferguson association, noted Wednesday that Thomas was found to be exceptionally qualified judge by the American Bar Association. "It's unfortunate what happened in this circumstance," she said.

U.S. Rep. Frederica Wilson, D-Fla., told the Huffington Post on Tuesday, "All of sudden for Senator Rubio to say Judge Thomas is not suitable is just not right." She added, "I don't know what more I can do to make Senator Rubio understand that what he is doing is wrong."

New York attorney Joe Patrice with Lankler Siffert & Wohl wrote on the Above the Law blog that torpedoing Thomas should help Rubio with his base after a fallout over immigration reform.

"Senator Rubio is just clutching at straws to get back his conservative bona fides, tragically lost when he started pushing the controversial idea that everyone of Mexican descent shouldn't be rounded up and exiled," Patrice wrote. "Making a punching bag out of a black and gay judge is a healthy start to getting back all-important presidential primary voters."

Rep. Scott Seeks to Block Obama's Judicial Nominees

 Says Obama's picks for six federal judgeships do not represent Georgia's demographics, values

 

By R. Robin McDonald 

 

Daily Report,  January 7, 2014

 

A Georgia Democrat in the U.S. House of Representatives is seeking permission to testify at the Senate confirmation hearings for six nominees to federal judicial posts in Georgia, saying outraged constituents claim the candidates "are unrepresentative of the demographics and values of the state."

 

Rep. David Scott, whose 13th District includes parts of Clayton, Cobb, DeKalb, Douglas, Fulton and Henry counties, called the selection process "an abomination" for remaining secret until an announcement was made the Friday before Christmas, "an opportune time to avoid negative publicity,

 

In a letter delivered Friday to Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., Scott asked to testify at hearings for two nominees for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit and four other candidates for posts in the Northern District of Georgia. Scott's goal: to share "very important and critical background information" with the committee about the nominees themselves as well as how the state's congressional Democrats were "shut out from any input in the selection process by the White House."

 

He wrote, "We must not allow lifetime appointed judges to be rammed through the hearing process without sufficient input from the people who will be affected by their future judicial actions."

 

Scott's letter to Leahy also indicated that confirmation hearings for Georgia's nominees could begin soon. A committee spokeswoman could not be reached for comment.

 

Scott's letter was sent two weeks after he and fellow House Democrats from Georgia, John Lewis and Hank Johnson, called on President Barack Obama to withdraw the nominations. They argued that the slate of candidates lacked diversity, as only one of the six is an African-American. They also claimed the majority of the candidates failed to reflect a more progressive judicial philosophy.

 

At a Dec. 23 news conference, Lewis said he was prepared to testify against two of the president's district court nominees, Judge Michael Boggs of the Georgia Court of Appeals and Troutman Sanders partner Mark Cohen. "It's not too late to turn this train around," Lewis said.

 

Lewis later told a USA Today columnist, "It's not easy to stand up to your president and say you got it wrong. But we've got to look beyond the next three years. These people are going to get a lifetime appointment."

 

Lewis' spokeswoman could not be reached Monday for comment.

 

Michael Andel, Scott's chief of staff, told the Daily Report on Monday that Scott's desire to testify against a Democratic president's nominees "is unusual. I don't know if it's happened before." Scott was prompted to do so, he said, by a groundswell of outrage and concern from constituents following the White House's Dec. 19 announcements.

 

The White House has nominated U.S. District Chief Judge Julie Carnes, who was appointed to the federal bench by President George H.W. Bush, to the U.S. Court of Appeals to the Eleventh Circuit. She joins nominee Jill Pryor, a partner at Atlanta's Bondurant, Mixson & Elmore whose nomination has been stalled for nearly two years.

 

In addition to Cohen and Boggs, who was appointed to the Court of Appeals by Republican Gov. Nathan Deal, the White House also nominated Leigh Martin May—a partner at Butler, Wooten & Fryhofer—and DeKalb County State Court Judge Eleanor Ross, who is also a Deal appointee and the only African-American nominee.

 

The slate of nominees was a compromise the White House carved out with Georgia's two Republican senators, Saxby Chambliss and Johnny Isakson, who blocked Pryor's nomination by refusing to return blue slips to the Judiciary Committee, a Senate courtesy that gives senators virtual veto power over their home state's judicial nominations and one that Leahy scrupulously follows.

 

Chambliss and Isakson also refused to return blue slips for attorney Natasha Perdew Silas, a public defender whom the president had nominated along with U.S. Magistrate Judge Linda Walker as part of an earlier package deal to fill two vacancies on Northern Georgia's District Court. The nominations of the two women, both African-Americans, were withdrawn by the president at the end of 2011.

 

The president announced the newest nominations despite concerns that Scott and Georgia's other four Democratic congressmen had raised in a letter to the White House last September and in a subsequent meeting with White House counsel Kathryn Ruemmler. At that meeting, Scott told the Daily Report on Monday, the congressmen were informed that "the deed was done."

 

Scott said Monday that he expects Lewis, to whom the president awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2011, will join him in testifying at the confirmation hearings along with the Rev. C.T. Vivian and the Rev. Joseph Lowery, whom the president also has presented with the freedom medal for their civil rights work.

 

Scott said that if Leahy grants him permission to testify, he intends to talk about Boggs' voting record as a former Democratic state legislator from Waycross. Scott singled out Boggs' 2001 vote not to change the state's flag, which then was embedded with the Confederate battle emblem.

 

He also pointed to the former legislator's votes authorizing a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage in Georgia; his cosponsorship of legislation requiring parental notification before young women could obtain an abortion; and his support of special "Choose Life" auto tags.

 

The congressman also took issue with Cohen's defense of the state's voter photo ID law as a special assistant state attorney general, calling it a form of voter suppression. Cohen, a former assistant attorney general and former counsel to Democratic Gov. Zell Miller, was hired to defend the law by the state's first black attorney general, Thurbert Baker.

 

"These attitudes … are not reflective of the population of Georgia," Scott insisted. "For the president of the United States to put these people in these lifetime positions is wrong. … This is a bad deal; a terrible, tragic mistake."

 

Boggs and Cohen have not responded to the criticism, the standard protocol required by the White House for judicial nominees. They could not be reached for comment on Monday.

 

Scott said that since the president "capitulated" to the state's Republican senators, he is turning to the Senate Judiciary Committee for help in short-circuiting at least some of the nominations while protesting a deal in which the state's Democratic congressional delegation "had no say and on top of that were shut out."

 

"Sometimes it's better to have these positions vacant than to put people in with prejudiced opinions against African-Americans, against gay people, against women's reproductive rights," Scott said. "These attitudes are not reflective of the population of Georgia."

 

"We cannot allow, to sit on the courts for life, people who believe in the Confederate flag in this day and time" with the hatred and bigotry it has come to symbolize, he added. "It can't stand. Georgia is better than that."

A Judicial Nominee's Troublesome Legislative Record

Following a secretive and highly-flawed process, the White House recently announced a deeply troublesome slate of nominees for the Eleventh U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia. Several elected officials and community leaders and organizations have questioned whether the recent nominees truly embody the progressive legacy that would be expected from this Administration. 

 

They point, for example, to Michael Boggs, who currently serves on the Georgia Court of Appeals, but who served in the Georgia General Assembly from 2001 through 2004. 

 

According to research by State Senator Vincent Fort, Boggs' significant votes as a legislator, from a constituency far-removed from the Northern District of Georgia, included the following:

 

Marriage Equality.  Boggs voted for the legislation authorizing the referendum on the constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage in Georgia. SR 595, March 31, 2004.

 

Women's Rights: Boggs co-sponsored legislation requiring parental notification and to start a Choose Life Program.

• Parental Notification: These measures made it more difficult for young women seeking health care to obtain the services they need by requiring their parent to be notified.

Information and statistics show that young women seeking reproductive health care DO inform an adult. While young women may not tell the parents (due to the shame of possible sexual abuse), they do seek the guidance of an adult, such as an aunt, grandmother or adult friend. 

These restrictive laws are part of a larger effort to curtail women's access to reproductive health care. They are meant to frighten young women in an attempt to force them to carry an unplanned pregnancy to term. HB 466, 2003-2004 Session. The legislation did not pass.

• Choose Life Programs and Car Tags. Using the state's law to create special license tags, conservative extremists attempted to use the Department of Motor Vehicles to create a funding stream for programs that deny access to women's health care. Money from the purchase of a Choose Life license plate would have provided backdoor funding for a specific political policy agenda.  HB 286, 2003-2004 Session. The legislation did not pass.

 

The State Flag. Boggs voted against legislation removing the Confederate Emblem from the Georgia State Flag. HB 16, January 24, 2001.

 

Rev. Joseph Lowery has observed that Boggs is part of a slate of nominees that is "not representative of the state."  It is certainly questionable whether Boggs' views are representative of the people of the Northern District of Georgia.