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Sunday, April 05, 2009
Law - "In many ways, Dawn Johnsen is a typical Bloomington mom. So why has her nomination to a Justice post sparked such outrage?"
Laura Lane of the Bloomington Herald-Times ($$$) takes a long look today at Bloomington's Dawn Johnsen, who is President Obama's nominee to head the DOJ's Office of Legal Counsel. The very long story begins:
Conservatives who oppose Indiana University law professor Dawn Johnsen’s appointment to head the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel harp on her liberal legal past as a lawyer for a national abortion rights advocacy group.More from the story:They also cite her harsh criticism of the Bush administration’s abuse of presidential power and support for using torture when interrogating suspected terrorists.
But they may not be as aware of the Johnsen known around Bloomington.
The woman who teaches the 3-year-olds’ Sunday School class at First United Methodist Church and whose husband sings in the church choir.
The mother whose family hosts a neighborhood Christmas caroling party every December; she ladles hot chocolate into cups while her husband plays the piano.
The lady who shows up at Pilates class in exercise pants and a grungy T-shirt. And who founded a book club with other couples, where they eat pizza and read classic literature, such as the current selection, John Updike’s “In the Beauty of the Lilies.”
The woman whose 10- and 12-year-old sons organize yard sales and donate the money to local charities.
The 47-year-old outdoor adventurer who every summer joins a group of friends in New Hampshire and hikes up windy Mount Washington, the highest peak in the northeast.
But the federal government’s powers-that-be certainly know these things.
Because soon after President Obama named Johnsen as his choice for the Justice Department position on Jan. 5, two weeks before his inauguration, Johnsen’s friends and Elm Heights neighbors started receiving knocks on their doors from strangers in the night.
FBI agents canvassed the near-eastside neighborhood, inviting themselves in and asking questions about Johnsen and her husband, John Hamilton’s, habits, friends and activities. Some found it unnerving. It’s not every day that the FBI comes to visit.
Scott Marsh, who lives near Johnsen, was expecting a friend for dinner when he answered the door one winter night, a glass of red wine in hand. Instead of a woman with Thai food, he found a federal agent with a badge standing on the stoop.
The man flashed his FBI identification, came inside and asked Marsh what he knew about Johnsen and her family. He said he had attended the holiday caroling celebration, but had never noticed anything suspicious or subversive about the gathering or his neighbors. He told the agent they were nice people and great parents; the man left without any dirt.
“They had told Dawn they would be talking to people who knew us, and we gave them some names,” Hamilton said. “We knew they would talk to other people. And we heard from neighbors that they did go up and down the street.”
Johnsen’s opponents, though, don’t seem to buy the Yale graduate’s normal, wholesome reputation in the town she calls home, where her husband of 15 years serves on the local school board.From the last part of the article:Conservative commentators the past few weeks have filled blogs with anti-Johnsen comments. One cited anonymous sources who said Republicans actually are considering a filibuster to block Johnsen’s appointment.
Bloomington’s law professor/wife/mother has become a true target for anti-Obama conservatives.
Ann Shibler last week described on the New American’s Web site what she called Johnsen’s “extremist pro-abortion sympathies.” She called Johnsen a “true elitist, totally out of step with natural law, mainstream America, motherhood, the Constitution, and maybe even baseball, hot dogs and apple pie.”
Both of Johnsen’s sons have played Little League baseball, as well as tennis, basketball and soccer. “We’ve been to a lot of baseball games,” Hamilton said.
Andrew McCarty, writing for the National Review online March 9, said that “on abortion and other issues dear to the Left, she is nothing short of a zealot.”
An April Fool’s Day New York Times story with the headline “Storm Clouds Gather Over Obama Nominees” was no joke. It acknowledged Republicans opposition of not only Johnsen, but also of her husband’s brother, David F. Hamilton, an Indiana judge who was Obama’s first choice for an open federal appeals court seat.
The article referred to Johnsen’s vocal statements against what she believed was President Bush’s abuse of presidential power, which she labeled “outlandish” and “shockingly flawed.”
Even some from her own party have questioned Johnsen’s selection. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, a California Democrat, said Johnsen’s role as an activist might well affect her ability to weigh both sides of as issue. She worried aloud during the confirmation hearing that a legal office that had gone too far to the right could go too far to the left on the political spectrum.
Some of Johnsen’s detractors focus on a footnote within a brief she filed in a 1989 Supreme Court case in which she wrote that forcing a woman to give birth to an unwanted child was “disturbingly suggestive of involuntary servitude.”
Was she comparing pregnancy to slavery, as some claim? Or was Johnsen illustrating a 14th Amendment argument protecting the rights of individuals from government intervention?
Conservatives and liberals choose different interpretations. After Johnsen testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee March 19, members voted 11-7 along party lines and approved sending her nomination to the full Senate, which is on spring recess until April 20. Her confirmation vote has not been scheduled.
During questioning from Sen. Arlen Specter, a pro-choice Republican, she addressed her comment in the footnote, saying it referred to women forced to give birth without access to abortion as an option.
She did not intend to equate pregnancy with slavery, she said. When addressing Specter’s question, she used the word “blessed” to describe her own two pregnancies.
At this point in the confirmation process, Johnsen cannot answer questions posed by the media. Nor can she come to her own defense as conservative writers and publications flay her, her legal stance and her writings. People under consideration for high-level Cabinet positions are advised not to talk to the media about anything.For more about Johnsen, see these ILB entries.But a few friends and a former boss spoke about her. They wonder, even chuckle to themselves, about how a soft-spoken Bloomington mom has become the controversial center of a national Senate debate.
Walter Dellinger was head of the Office of Legal Counsel under President Bill Clinton, when Johnsen worked there. Dellinger told The Herald-Times that Johnsen’s ability to balance executive power with civil liberties is unsurpassed. The motto in the office back then, in the mid 1990s: “Dawn Johnsen is always right.”
He said Johnsen’s ability to set aside her personal beliefs and discern the true and just intent of the law makes her the right choice to oversee legal interpretations at the highest level.
When Lee Sandweiss and her husband, Eric, moved to Bloomington in 2002 with their 6-year-old twins, Johnsen and Hamilton — Eric Sandweiss’ college roommate at Harvard — were the only people they knew in town. “Their door was always open to us. I cannot tell you how many times we stayed in their guest room when we came from St. Louis to look at houses. She totally lives her Christian principles — doing things for the poor, befriending people, doing the things that are important,” Lee Sandweiss said.
She called Johnsen low-key, spontaneous, brilliant, modest. “I thought I saw her at the Y yesterday on a weight machine, and then I realized it was her, in an old T-shirt. She is so unassuming. But engage in a conversation with her for 15 seconds and it is apparent you are dealing with a tremendous mind.”
She called the scrutiny Johnsen is undergoing “insane.”
Eric Sandweiss admires Johnsen for her personal, social and religious commitment to live in a way that makes the world a better place.
Sometimes, he forgets about her prestige and respect in the legal world.
“We’d be expecting her for dinner, or to pick a kid up or something, and John would call and say Dawn would be a little bit late,” he said.
“Then later it would come out that she was finishing an interview on McNeil/Lehrer or confer ring with Ted Kennedy’s staff about a legal issue and was late for carpool.”
Mimi Zolan knows the other Dawn Johnsen, too, the one she met when their now 12-year-old sons were in preschool together at Bloomington Developmental Learning Center. They have been friends since. And for the past five years or so, she has seen Johnsen regularly when their book club gathers on Saturday nights.
Everyone brings their kids and food to share. “Once Dawn cooked a really nice dinner because it was John’s birthday, and sometimes we just have pizza or carry-out.”
And most often, they discuss books, not politics.
Posted by Marcia Oddi on April 5, 2009 02:06 PM
Posted to General Law Related