Michael Wallace (lawyer)

Michael Brunson Wallace (born 1951 in Biloxi, Mississippi) is an American lawyer from Jackson, Mississippi and a former nominee to the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.

Background

Michael Wallace was born January 1, 1951, in Biloxi, Mississippi. He received his bachelor's degree cum laude from Harvard University in 1973. In 1976, he graduated from the University of Virginia School of Law, where he served on the Virginia Law Review and was named to the Order of the Coif. Wallace then clerked for Mississippi Supreme Court Justice Harry G. Walker from 1976 until 1977 and then-Associate Supreme Court Justice William Rehnquist from 1977 until 1978. From 1980 to 1981, Wallace worked as a research analyst for the United States House of Representatives House Republican Research Committee. From 1980 to 1983, he worked as the counsel for the Office of the Republican Whip in the U.S. House under future Mississippi senator Trent Lott. Wallace was a legislative consultant to the Administrative Conference of the United States from 1984 to 1994. The Conference’s primary responsibility was to examine administrative processes in Congress and federal agencies for the purpose of recommending improvements. From 1984 to 1990, Mr. Wallace served as a board member of the Legal Services Corporation, a private, non-profit corporation established by Congress to promote the availability of legal services to the indigent. He served as board chairman from 1988 to 1990. From 1983 to 1986, Mr. Wallace was an associate at the Jackson, Mississippi law firm of Jones, Mockbee, Bass & Hodge. Since 1986, he has been a partner at Phelps Dunbar LLP, also in Jackson.^[1] In 1992, President George H.W. Bush considered Mr. Wallace for nomination to the federal bench. His name was submitted to the American Bar Association for review, and some civil rights organizations expressed their opposition. The nomination never came before Congress.^[2]

Fifth Circuit nomination under Bush

On February 8, 2006, President George W. Bush nominated Mr. Wallace to a seat on the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit vacated by Judge Henry Anthony Politz, who had taken senior status in 1999. From May 2001 until December 2004, federal district court judge Charles W. Pickering had been the nominee for the seat, but Senate Democrats and liberal groups like People for the American Way had been successful in obstructing his confirmation. Frustrated with this obstruction, President Bush recess-appointed Judge Pickering to the Fifth Circuit in January 2004. Unable to break a Democrat filibuster, Pickering retired at the end of 2004. Wallace was nominated to replace Pickering.

Mr. Wallace was immediately opposed by the Senate Democrats and the same liberal groups that had previously opposed Pickering. They charged that Mr. Wallace had tried to undermine meaningful enforcement of the U.S. civil rights laws. They said that he had fought unsuccessfully against restoring important, widely supported voting rights protections, continued to maintain that such protections did not exist long after they were enacted, stopped legal services providers from bringing cases under the Voting Rights Act, and opposed efforts in 2006 to enforce the Voting Rights Act.[1]

Senate Democrats and liberal groups were especially upset with Mr. Wallace's actions as a member of the Legal Services Corporation. As the chair of the organization, Wallace had received significant criticism from Democrats and a few moderate Republicans for seeking to undermine the agency. He authorized the use of LSC funds to lobby Congress for cuts in LSC’s budget and to pay lawyers to prepare a memo arguing for LSC’s abolition. Republican Senator Warren Rudman characterized Wallace's appeal to Congress as "absolutely bad faith."^[3]

Although it determined that Wallace “has the highest professional competence” and “possesses the integrity to serve on the bench,” the American Bar Association's judicial-evaluations committee gave him a "not qualified" rating, finding him lacking on the highly malleable element of “judicial temperament.” Senate Republicans blamed the "not qualified" rating on the liberal biases of the American Bar Association's leadership and judicial-evaluations committee. They pointed to the fact that the chair of the ABA committee at the time of the evaluation, Stephen Tober, had had a major run-in with Wallace in 1987 when Wallace served on the board of the Legal Services Corporation. In the course of strikingly intemperate testimony before an LSC committee headed by Wallace, Tober twice accused him of a “hidden agenda.” (The ABA president at the time of the ABA’s evaluation of Wallace, Michael S. Greco, and another ABA committee member, Marna Tucker, had likewise attacked Wallace over contentious LSC matters.) On the Wallace evaluation, Tober played the customary role that the ABA committee chair plays (and that is set forth in the ABA’s so-called Backgrounder): He assigned Fifth Circuit member Kim Askew — who according to the Republicans had her own biases and conflict of interest concerning Wallace — to conduct the investigation. He reviewed her draft report with her. In light of her proposed “not qualified” rating, he assigned a second person, Thomas Hayward, to conduct a second evaluation of Wallace. He reviewed Hayward’s draft report with him. He determined that he was satisfied with the “quality and thoroughness” of Askew’s investigation, and made the same determination regarding Hayward’s investigation. He then directed his committee colleagues to read Askew’s report and Hayward’s report in tandem. Without any deliberation among the committee members, Tober then received and tallied the votes of the other committee members. Under the ABA committee’s procedures, the chair votes only in the event of a tie, so Tober did not cast a vote. Tober then reported the committee’s unanimous “not qualified” rating to the Senate Judiciary Committee. Republicans felt that Tober plainly should have recused himself from the Wallace evaluation.^[4]

In December 2006, Wallace announced that he was withdrawing his name from consideration for the Fifth Circuit.[2] Only in September 2007, after a delay of six years, was the seat to which Pickering and Wallace had been nominated filled with a Bush nominee. Leslie H. Southwick, another controversial nominee, was confirmed almost entirely because of the support of California's Democratic senator, Dianne Feinstein.

See also

• George W. Bush judicial appointment controversies

External links

• Department of Justice resume
• Official White House Biography
• "Four Judicial Nominees Ask to Withdraw", New York Times, Jan. 9, 2007
• Help Wanted: Qualified Judges at the New York Times
• Report on Nomination of Michael Wallace at People For the American Way

Notes

1. ^ http://www.pfaw.org/pfaw/general/default.aspx?oid=22499
2. ^ http://www.pfaw.org/pfaw/general/default.aspx?oid=22499
3. ^ Barrett, Paul (1989-08-29). "Under Bush, A Band of Reaganites Continues to Slash Funds for Legal Aid to the Poor". Wall Street Journal. 
4. ^ http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=MTk5OTZkZTY2N2JkZmQ5NDgyNjAwZjAxZDE0ZjY3Yzc=

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Name	Wallace, Michael
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Date of birth	1951
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