ABA deems another Trump judicial nominee not qualified

[demmiblue]

Source: Politico

Another one of President Donald Trump’s judicial nominees — this time, to the powerful appellate courts — has been deemed "not qualified" by the American Bar Association.

Leonard Steven Grasz was nominated in August to fill a vacancy on the U.S. Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals and has his confirmation hearing in the Senate Judiciary Committee this week. But in a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee obtained by POLITICO, the American Bar Association says members of its standing committee unanimously concluded, with one person abstaining, that he was not qualified to serve as a federal judge.

The letter did not elaborate on why.

Grasz is currently a lawyer in Omaha and served for more than 11 years as Nebraska’s chief deputy attorney general. His home-state senators — Nebraska Republicans Deb Fischer and Ben Sasse — effusively praised him when Grasz was nominated, with Fischer promoting his “sterling credentials and impressive experience” and Sasse deeming him a “by-the-book kind of guy.”

Read more: https://www.politico.com/story/2017/10/30/aba-trump-judicial-nominee-not-qualified-244327

[sandensea]

1. Like Gorka

but with a law degree.

[Honeycombe8]

2. Wow. Never heard of this happening before. Bad day for Trump.

This guy must have something unsavory in his past.

[atreides1]

4. You read about him!

https://www.afj.org/our-work/nominees/grasz

[demmiblue]

6. Wow, thanks for linking to that.

[Honeycombe8]

9. Wow. Total disregard for the law, when it differs from his personal beliefs. Wow. nt

[LisaM]

5. A snippet of his issues....

Grasz’s nomination is in keeping with President Trump’s promise to nominate candidates to the federal judiciary who are hostile to Roe v. Wade. Notably, Grasz has compared the “personhood” of fetuses to the civil rights of Native and African Americans. Moreover, since August 2015, Grasz has served on the Board of the Nebraska Family Alliance, and is currently its Director. The Family Alliance has celebrated the mass closings of clinics that offer women’s reproductive services, condemned Supreme Court decisions that protect women’s rights, and claimed that abortion rights “put[] women’s lives at risk.” As an attorney, Grasz fought vigorously against women’s reproductive rights. He defended Nebraska’s unconstitutional statute in Stenberg v. Carhart, and fought to deny Medicaid coverage, as required by federal law, to a woman who sought to terminate her pregnancy because she had been raped.

Grasz has fought with equal enthusiasm against LGBTQ equality. In 2013, he proposed an Amendment to the Omaha City Charter that would have allowed employers to discriminate against LGBTQ people in hiring. And, under Grasz’s leadership, the Family Alliance opposed legislation to “[p]rohibit discrimination based upon sexual orientation and gender identity” in the workplace by arguing that the terms “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” describe “behaviors,” rather than “traits” like race.

Among the most disturbing content in the Family Alliance’s written materials are articles supporting the cruel practice of conversion therapy. The Alliance has claimed that “[a] generation of children is being raised to believe in the social construct of a gender spectrum, instead of the biological reality of male and female. This is a trend that should be rejected at every level.” To that end, the Family Alliance also signed an amicus brief in Obergefell v. Hodges arguing that only the parenting of “a mother and a father[,]” rather than a same-sex couple, “provides children with the optimal environment for their cognitive, social, and emotional development from infancy through adolescence.”

[atreides1]

3. He's by the book, alright

As long as that book is the Bible, or at least his version of it!!!

Just another religious fanatic, that has more in common with ISIS!!!

[Bernardo de La Paz]

7. No more judicial confirmations. This is the last year of the tRump Presidency. . . . nt

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

8. Oh, THAT A.B.A. I hoped they resurrected the league ...

... that gave us the Spurs and the Nets.

[RainCaster]

10. Of course this means nothing to the WH

"The Trump administration notified the American Bar Association in March that it was ending its long-standing practice of inviting the independent ABA Standing Committee on the Federal Judiciary to review the professional qualifications of prospective nominees..."

[TrollBuster9090]

11. What does a Swedish rock band from the 70s have to do with this?

*groan*

But seriously...I suppose we should be grateful he hasn't yet nominated ORLY TAITZ?