Ed Meese III is an Emeritus Fellow at the Heritage Foundation and former US Attorney General under the Reagan administration.
WHAT HE SAID THIS WEEK:
In a Fox News op-ed today approving of the Senate Republicans’ obstruction to fill the Supreme Court vacancy, Ed Meese III, the former US Attorney General under Reagan said:
“Let the people decide the next justice with their votes for the next president — whoever it is. Don’t deny them that right this close to what is sure to be an historic election, that will not only determine where the American people want their country to go but the direction they want their court to take.”
WHAT HE SAID IN 2004
As an Emeritus Fellow at the Heritage Foundation, Ed Meese blasted Senate Democrats for pulling “shenanigans” with judicial nominees:
“Certain senators have made every effort to deprive President Bush of his power to appoint judges with the advice and consent of the Senate….Plainly, these lawmakers are not interested in an even-handed application of the rules. They are merely manipulating the verbiage of principle to partisan advantage. Such unprecedented shenanigans politicize the judiciary — contrary to the very purpose of life appointments, which is to insulate federal judges from politics. Americans shouldn’t tolerate this hypocrisy.”
WHAT HE SAID IN 1986:
According to the New York Times, “Attorney General Edwin Meese III called the [Senate Judiciary] committee’s failure to approve the nomination ‘an appalling surrender’ to the politics of ideology.”
“The Attorney General said the campaign waged against the nominee by a number of liberal groups was ‘based entirely on their political and philosophical differences with Reagan Administration policies and initiatives,’ and added, ‘Political or ideological litmus tests should have no place in the confirmation process.'”