This is putting it mildly: Chief Justice Leah Ward Sears infuriated state Democrats. - Why is Univ. of Ga. Law School participating in this betrayal?
According to Wikipedia, this selfish disappointment will be teaching a course in family law at the University of Georgia Law School.
Coach Adams must have hired her. The only course she should be able to teach would be one on Benedict Arnold.
I hate to say it, but I do not wish her well. I have rarely in my life been so disappointed in someone. I am embarrassed I supported her so vigorously.
From the ajc:
Last year, Chief Justice Leah Ward [Sears] infuriated state Democrats — and some key supporters — when she announced she was retiring at the end of June, letting Perdue pick the next justice. Sears’ term would have run through 2010, but she is leaving to practice law, work for a think tank and teach at the University of Georgia law school.
Bill Shipp wrote the following about this in November 2008:
Last week, Georgia Supreme Court Chief Justice Leah Ward Sears made a surprise announcement that she was going to resign from the bench during the coming summer, handing Gov. Sonny Perdue the opportunity to name her successor.
Sears, who was appointed to the Supreme Court in 1992 by then-Gov. Zell Miller, is the first African-American woman to serve as chief justice of a state Supreme Court anywhere in the nation.
What makes the announcement all the more strange is that in 2004, the last time Sears was on the ballot, Perdue mounted a concerted effort to boot Sears from the high court by actively backing the candidacy of her challenger, former Cobb County Superior Court Judge Grant Brantley. Perdue pulled the state's Republican establishment behind Brantley, who was a featured speaker at that year's Republican state convention and who received major fundraising help from GOP givers. Paul Bennecke, then the state Republican Party's political director, took a leave of absence to run Brantley's campaign, which attempted to paint Sears as an extreme liberal.
Unspoken but just below the surface of the effort to defeat Sears was Perdue's anger at her and some of her colleagues for ruling against him when he sued Democratic Attorney General Thurbert Baker in 2003 in an attempt to seize control of the state's legal affairs. The Supreme Court, with Sears in the majority, ruled that the attorney general has the right, as an independently elected constitutional officer, to handle the state's legal matters without interference from the governor.
State Democrats took note of the effort by Perdue and the Republicans to unseat Sears and mobilized to stop the power grab. The state Democratic Party, which at the time maintained a research operation, learned that Brantley had personal issues that raised serious questions about his fitness for the bench.
In addition to a history of problems paying taxes and other obligations, Brantley had spent years telling people that President George H. W. Bush had nominated him to serve on the federal bench in 1992, and that only Bush's defeat at the hands of Bill Clinton that year had blocked him from the prestigious lifetime appointment. It turns out that Brantley's claim was untrue.
The re-election effort Sears mounted on her own behalf was fairly aimless, with little money and no message.
The Democrats also put up $150,000 to run TV ads statewide, utilizing the "multicandidate" loophole in Georgia law that allows parties to run advertisements supporting candidates without dollar limitation.
As a result, Sears won statewide with 62 percent of the vote, winning every county where the ads were seen, while losing many counties on the fringe of the state where it did not air. The Democratic Party took a public relations hit for its support of Sears, but Perdue's court-packing power grab had been averted.
Now Sears is going to hand Perdue the chance he was seeking in 2004. The success of Democrats and their allies in defending Sears and her colleague Carol Hunstein from being voted off the Supreme Court were rare victories in the effort to turn back Republicans' recent ascendancy in Georgia. Now Sears is going to deliver to Perdue the opportunity to reshape the court.
Coach Adams must have hired her. The only course she should be able to teach would be one on Benedict Arnold.
I hate to say it, but I do not wish her well. I have rarely in my life been so disappointed in someone. I am embarrassed I supported her so vigorously.
From the ajc:
Last year, Chief Justice Leah Ward [Sears] infuriated state Democrats — and some key supporters — when she announced she was retiring at the end of June, letting Perdue pick the next justice. Sears’ term would have run through 2010, but she is leaving to practice law, work for a think tank and teach at the University of Georgia law school.
Bill Shipp wrote the following about this in November 2008:
Last week, Georgia Supreme Court Chief Justice Leah Ward Sears made a surprise announcement that she was going to resign from the bench during the coming summer, handing Gov. Sonny Perdue the opportunity to name her successor.
Sears, who was appointed to the Supreme Court in 1992 by then-Gov. Zell Miller, is the first African-American woman to serve as chief justice of a state Supreme Court anywhere in the nation.
What makes the announcement all the more strange is that in 2004, the last time Sears was on the ballot, Perdue mounted a concerted effort to boot Sears from the high court by actively backing the candidacy of her challenger, former Cobb County Superior Court Judge Grant Brantley. Perdue pulled the state's Republican establishment behind Brantley, who was a featured speaker at that year's Republican state convention and who received major fundraising help from GOP givers. Paul Bennecke, then the state Republican Party's political director, took a leave of absence to run Brantley's campaign, which attempted to paint Sears as an extreme liberal.
Unspoken but just below the surface of the effort to defeat Sears was Perdue's anger at her and some of her colleagues for ruling against him when he sued Democratic Attorney General Thurbert Baker in 2003 in an attempt to seize control of the state's legal affairs. The Supreme Court, with Sears in the majority, ruled that the attorney general has the right, as an independently elected constitutional officer, to handle the state's legal matters without interference from the governor.
State Democrats took note of the effort by Perdue and the Republicans to unseat Sears and mobilized to stop the power grab. The state Democratic Party, which at the time maintained a research operation, learned that Brantley had personal issues that raised serious questions about his fitness for the bench.
In addition to a history of problems paying taxes and other obligations, Brantley had spent years telling people that President George H. W. Bush had nominated him to serve on the federal bench in 1992, and that only Bush's defeat at the hands of Bill Clinton that year had blocked him from the prestigious lifetime appointment. It turns out that Brantley's claim was untrue.
The re-election effort Sears mounted on her own behalf was fairly aimless, with little money and no message.
The Democrats also put up $150,000 to run TV ads statewide, utilizing the "multicandidate" loophole in Georgia law that allows parties to run advertisements supporting candidates without dollar limitation.
As a result, Sears won statewide with 62 percent of the vote, winning every county where the ads were seen, while losing many counties on the fringe of the state where it did not air. The Democratic Party took a public relations hit for its support of Sears, but Perdue's court-packing power grab had been averted.
Now Sears is going to hand Perdue the chance he was seeking in 2004. The success of Democrats and their allies in defending Sears and her colleague Carol Hunstein from being voted off the Supreme Court were rare victories in the effort to turn back Republicans' recent ascendancy in Georgia. Now Sears is going to deliver to Perdue the opportunity to reshape the court.
posted by Sid Cottingham | 10:40 PM
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