What Do Peter Diamond and Paul Pate Have in Common?
You might have heard of Peter Diamond, he recently won the Nobel Prize in Economics and earlier this week withdrew his nomination to the Federal Reserve Board. But maybe you have not heard of Paul Pate.
Mr. Pate, former Republican mayor of Cedar Rapids, Iowa was nominated by President Bush in 2003 to fill a seat on the board of the National Institute of Building Sciences. I remember it well, as I handled that nomination as staff for the Senate Banking Committee.
So what exactly do Mr. Diamond and Mr. Pate have in common? They were both nominated for positions they could not legally hold. I’ve written elsewhere about Mr. Diamond’s situation. Mr. Pate was barred from serving on the NIBS board due to an ownership interest he had in an asphalt company.
Bush’s Office of Presidential Personnel didn’t catch that problem because they, like Obama’s same Office, don’t appear to actually read the statutory qualifications for nominations. I will admit, I didn’t catch this problem either. It was brought to my attention by the staff of former senator Paul Sarbanes (D-MD). When I verified Sarbanes’s objection, we immediately told Mr. Pate and the Bush White House that then Committee Chair Richard Shelby would not move Mr. Pate’s nomination (despite Mr. Pate’s personal friendship with Sen. Grassley (R-IA)).
Both Mr. Diamond and Mr. Pate were, in part, the victim of circumstances beyond their control. They had done nothing wrong. Yet the law was the law. While I don’t equate NIBS with the Fed, that shouldn’t matter. We should respect the law regardless of the viewed relative importance of the position. In fact, I believe the more important the position, the greater need for respecting the law.
Unfortunately there is a lot Mr. Diamond and Mr. Pate do not have in common. Rather than accept his bad luck, Mr. Diamond offers in the New York Times the rant of a spoiled brat. Mr. Pate, in contrast, accepted his bad luck with integrity and grace.
Supreme Speculation
With no hard news to report and the Supreme Court not in session — they’ll release opinions in the remaining cases on successive Mondays (plus the Tuesday after Memorial Day) beginning May 18 — Washington is abuzz with speculation over potential high court nominees. While Senator Orrin Hatch earlier this week said he expected an announcement this week, the White House is far more likely to take its time vetting candidates, with no real pressure to announce a pick until the Court recesses at the end of June.
Nobody other than the president himself really knows who’s favored, but ABC News’s Jan Crawford Greenburg — who will be contributing to this year’s Cato Supreme Court Review and speaking at our Constitution Day conference September 17 — has some fascinating scuttlebutt:
No clear favorite has emerged, but the pick has prompted an internal struggle between legal and political officials within the administration, sources say.
Political officials like Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel are favoring Sotomayor, who would be an historic pick as the Court’s first Hispanic justice.
Obama, the thinking goes, could score huge points with Hispanics, an important and increasingly powerful constituency, by nominating Sotomayor or another Latino. Sotomayor has a compelling life story, moving from the projects to the nation’s most elite educational institutions and then onto the federal bench.
But Sotomayor has not dazzled or distinguished herself on the appeals court as a forceful theoretician or writer — something Obama, the former constitutional law scholar who will drive this decision, is likely to want in his Supreme Court nominee, sources close to the process said. Moreover, she’s also been criticized for abrasiveness — which could be problematic on the high court.
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