The Center for Individual Freedom filed an ethics complaint Monday against a former aide to Democrat Sen. Ted Kennedy. The complaint revolves around the aide's recommendation that the confirmation of one of President Bush's conservative judicial nominees be delayed in order to influence the outcome of an affirmative action case before the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Olati Johnson, who was Kennedy's counsel on the Senate Judiciary Committee, wrote the controversial April 17, 2002, memo that sought to delay Julia Smith Gibbons' confirmation to the same court handling the University of Michigan affirmative action case.
Johnson had come to Kennedy's office from the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund (LDF), where she was co-counsel for the students supporting the university's affirmative action policy. She allegedly wrote the memo after consulting with her former boss, Elaine R. Jones, the LDF's president and director-counsel. The memo spells out the rationale for delaying Gibbons' confirmation: "The thinking is that the current 6th Circuit will sustain the affirmative action program, but if a new judge with conservative views is confirmed before the case is decided, that new judge will be able, under 6th Circuit rules, to review the case and vote on it." |