Lopez flyer
http://thedustininmansociety.org/docs/flyer-lopez-blue-slip.pdf

8.5 x 11

Atlanta Journal Constitution

December 24, 2015

Daniel Malloy

Georgia Latino’s court nomination appears in peril over immigration

Five months after President Barack Obama picked Dax Lopez to be Georgia’s first lifetime-appointed Latino federal judge, his nomination is on the ropes because of the thorny politics of immigration.

Georgia Republican U.S. Sens. David Perdue and Johnny Isakson have yet to sign off on the DeKalb County State Court judge to move forward in the Senate, as Lopez has been under attack from conservative activists for his membership in a Georgia advocacy group that has fought immigration restrictions.
Immigration is a powerful issue for the Republican base, particularly at a time when Donald Trump — he of the mass deportations and the magnificent Mexican border wall — is leading the presidential primary in Georgia and nationally. Perdue campaigned for his first-term win in 2014 opposing any sort of “amnesty” for immigrants here illegally, and Isakson is up for re-election in 2016.

Lopez, meanwhile, sat on the board of the Georgia Association of Latino Elected Officials, which supports a path to citizenship for people here illegally. It also has fought tougher state laws on immigration and praised local sheriffs who refused federal “hold” requests for immigrants.

“There would be a political price to pay for either conservative United States senator, one of them running for re-election, letting it go to the committee process with everything that’s been revealed about GALEO,” said D.A. King, an activist who has led the charge against Lopez.

But the price could come due either way.

“Latinos in Georgia are looking at this very closely,” said Jerry Gonzalez, the executive director of GALEO.

Caught up in Senate process

After Lopez was appointed a judge in 2010 by Gov. Sonny Perdue, he abstained from GALEO’s policy votes and fundraising, Gonzalez said.

Lopez declined to comment while his nomination is pending, but he is making backup plans. Lopez recently launched his re-election campaign for the state court post in 2016.

By custom, home-state senators must approve of a nominee before he or she goes to the full Judiciary Committee, a process known as providing a “blue slip.” Georgia’s senators are noncommittal about Lopez’s future.

“It’s going to be taken up in the Judiciary Committee early next year,” Perdue said.

“We’re in the process of evaluating that whole situation. … I take it very seriously. We have a process with our staff and in Georgia to make sure we do the right thing, both for the people of Georgia and the people who get nominated.”

Isakson added that “we are doing our due diligence.”

Perdue roadblock first seemed unlikely

While both senators say they are still vetting Lopez, and both recently met with the judge, the holdup appears to be coming more from Perdue, who sits on the Judiciary Committee. And even if Georgia’s senators allow Lopez to go to committee, the panel includes Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and Jeff Sessions, R-Ala. — two of the Senate’s biggest immigration hawks — who would likely get tough on Lopez.

At first glance, Lopez seemed unlikely to meet a Perdue roadblock.

The judge is a Republican and a member of the conservative Federalist Society. He volunteered for Bob Barr’s successful run for Congress as a Republican in 1994.

Lopez was first appointed to the Georgia bench by David Perdue’s cousin. And the counsel for Perdue’s Senate campaign, Josh Belinfante, served on the panel convened by the senators to vet potential nominees that sent Lopez’s name to the White House.

Belinfante, state Republican Party counsel Anne Lewis, former state House Majority Whip Ed Lindsey and a slew of other prominent GOP attorneys signed a letter to the senators in support of Lopez in September.

“As conservatives, we recognize that the constitutional obligation of a judge is to decide cases based on the text of the law and not policy preferences,” they wrote. “We know that Judge Lopez views the law the same way.”

In an interview, Belinfante said he stands by the letter but adds of the panel: “We certainly did not have the authority to bind the senators to anything.”

Lopez has avoided policy votes

Lopez, 40, was born in Puerto Rico and moved to Cobb County as a boy. A Vanderbilt University graduate, he rose quickly through the legal ranks and was tapped for the state court judgeship at age 34.

In 2004, he joined the GALEO board. Gonzalez called Lopez a “great strategic thinker” who helped guide the organization, but since he became a judge in 2010, Lopez has focused on civic engagement and leadership development for Latinos — and avoided policy.

Lopez resigned from the board after his July nomination, which Gonzalez said is a “protocol” for federal nominees started when George W. Bush nominated Luis Aguilar to serve on the Securities and Exchange Commission.

King, the founder of the Dustin Inman Society, an anti-illegal-immigration group; and Phil Kent, a conservative pundit and member of the state Immigration Enforcement Review Board; have been the chief instigators against Lopez. Sheriffs from Cobb County and elsewhere have joined them with similar immigration-based concerns.

“I think the nomination is drifting away,” Kent said. “I was obviously gratified to see this outpouring of opposition.”

King said he had gotten the brush-off from Isakson’s office, but Perdue’s staffers were generous with their time.

“I went away with the confidence that this has gone as far as it’s ever going to go,” King said.

Conservatives learn from liberal model

The conservatives have taken a page from the playbook of liberals who kept this Northern District of Georgia post vacant.

In late 2013, after years of back-and-forth, Obama nominated a package of judges to fill several Georgia slots. The most conservative nominee in the bunch was Georgia Court of Appeals Judge Michael Boggs, a former Democratic state legislator from Waycross with socially conservative views who voted to keep the Confederate battle emblem on the Georgia state flag.

Civil rights leaders and groups such as NARAL Pro-Choice America helped turn Democrats against Boggs and torpedo his nomination, while the other six nominees were approved by the Senate. After the new Congress convened, the Georgia senators put together a group of six people to come up with a suitable replacement, and the group sent Lopez’s name to the White House in mid-2015.

In Washington, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and the Democratic-dominated Congressional Hispanic Caucus have publicly pushed the Lopez nomination. But Republicans drive the agenda, and the clock is working against Lopez.

While the Senate has agreed to vote in the coming weeks on five judicial nominees who already have cleared committee, the nomination process typically grinds to a halt in an election year. In this case, the Republicans controlling the Senate can hope for more conservative nominees under the next president.

“When you’re in the eighth year of a two-term presidency and talking about judicial employment, that’s a legacy issue,” Isakson said. “That’s a policy not about a specific judge.”

Glenn Sugameli of Defenders of Wildlife, who works with left-leaning organizations to track judicial nominations, said election-year politics are no excuse to slow-walk a nominee.

“If the Georgia senators really want to say ‘We do not approve this person,’ they should do it, and there’s still time to get someone else in that spot,” Sugameli said. “The most irresponsible thing would be to let this thing linger.”

HERE

 

Bonus info on GALEO and Dax Lopez HERE.

Marietta Daily Journal

Georgia senators should block Lopez’s path
by D.A. King
August 26, 2015

Readers may have heard by now that President Barack Obama has nominated a DeKalb County State Court Judge, Dax Lopez, for the lifetime position as a federal judge in the Northern District of Georgia.

Pro-enforcement conservatives among our Republican friends should pay close attention to this process. They might even want to speak up against confirming Lopez. But, warning: Dax Lopez says he is a Republican, so there is that whole GOP “eleventh commandment” silliness to consider. And he is also originally from Puerto Rico, which of course creates the element of “Hispanic outreach,” “big tent,” “we don’t want to be called names” to deal with for those who may consider forming a committee to discuss future public objection to his confirmation.

As someone who has actively fought the vast, corporate-funded illegal alien lobby in Georgia for more than a decade, let me be as clear as possible: Dax Lopez should never become a federal judge because he has served on the board of directors of the anti-immigration enforcement and extremely liberal Georgia Association of Latino Elected Officials since 2004.

Obama’s first pick for the seat was a widely respected conservative south Georgia Democrat and former state legislator named Michael Boggs. It may serve as some encouragement to voicing objection to Lopez for loyal and obedient GOPers to know that the Democrats killed any chance of Boggs becoming a federal judge on the grounds that he was too conservative.

Boggs’ confirmation was blocked by fellow Democrats because of his views on homosexual marriage, the right-to-life battle and the Confederate battle flag.

“He’s a person who’s not, in my opinion, in the mainstream, and I don’t think he deserves to be a federal judge,” then U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said of Boggs last May.

Curious conservatives should also have this nugget of knowledge on how our government works from the liberal Talking Points Memo news website: “When a judge is nominated, the Judiciary Committee sends a ‘blue slip’ to home state senators seeking their approval. If they sign off, the committee moves forward with the nomination. If one or both of them disapproves or withholds the blue slip, the nomination tends to grind to a halt.”

For Obama-voter readers, this means that either or both of Georgia’s Republican U.S. Senators could end the consideration of pro-amnesty GALEO’s board member for federal judge tomorrow.

They could also remain silent on Lopez and his long-time, faithful affiliation with the open borders radicals led by Jerry Gonzalez, who boast of Jane Fonda being a “Founding Friend.” But wouldn’t it be refreshing to see Republicans actually take a stand and make it publicly clear that the time to stop anti-enforcement activist federal judges is before they are even considered for becoming federal judges?

When not viciously attacking local law enforcement for helping to enforce immigration laws and organizing massive bus trips from Georgia to Washington D.C. to lobby for another amnesty for undocumented Democrats, GALEO has proudly lobbied against local law enforcement honoring requests from federal immigration authorities to hold illegal aliens for investigation.

We hope that readers — and U.S. Senators — still remember Kate Steinle, one of the thousands of Americans killed because of this exact anti-enforcement policy. And we remind all concerned that transporting illegal aliens — including in buses to Washington — is a federal crime.

Imagine for a moment — because sadly, it is possible — that GALEO’s Lopez, age 40, were to be confirmed as a federal judge in Georgia for the rest of his life.

Look down the road to the possibility of a case referred to Lopez’s court against enforcement of immigration laws similar to the lawsuit against Georgia’s 2011 HB 87 from the ACLU and the SPLC on which GALEO acted as a “friend” by filing an “amicus brief.” Does Federal Judge Lopez recuse himself because of his affiliation with the anti-enforcement plaintiffs?

Does he recuse himself for all immigration enforcement cases? Does he resign from the board of GALEO? If so, when — then, or now, or as a condition of his confirmation?

We made it clear that Lopez says he is a Republican. When he ran for election in 2012, he was supported and endorsed by Democrats Jason Carter and Roy Barnes. He should be described as “a Jerry Gonzalez, Jason Carter, Roy Barnes Republican.”

Neither Lopez nor GALEO should be considered “in the mainstream” by our Republican senators and Dax Lopez does not deserve to be a federal judge.

D.A. King is president of the Dustin Inman Society and has assisted state legislators with passage of many Georgia laws aimed at illegal immigration. Info on the Lopez nomination can be seen on King’s MDJ blog.

Read more: The Marietta Daily Journal – Georgia senators should block Lopez s path

The AJC recently did a story on the apparent dead end to the Obama nomination of GALEO’s Dax Lopez for federal judge. Jerry Gonzalez, the GALEO Executive Director – and former MALDEF stooge – didn’t let anyone down. We post a small part of the AJC story (paywall) below along with some educated insight.

Georgia Latino’s court nomination appears in peril over immigration 

Thursday, Dec. 24, 2015

By Daniel Malloy – The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

WASHINGTON —
Five months after President Barack Obama picked Dax Lopez to be Georgia’s first lifetime-appointed Latino federal judge, his nomination is on the ropes because of the thorny politics of immigration.

Georgia Republican U.S. Sens. David Perdue and Johnny Isakson have yet to sign off on the DeKalb County State Court judge to move forward in the Senate, as Lopez has been under attack from conservative activists for his membership in a Georgia advocacy group that has fought immigration restrictions.

+Georgia Latino’s court nomination appears in peril over immigration photo
Dax E. Lopez, a DeKalb County State Court judge, has been nominated to the federal bench. But five months after the … Read More
Immigration is a powerful issue for the Republican base, particularly at a time when Donald Trump — he of the mass deportations and the magnificent Mexican border wall — is leading the presidential primary in Georgia and nationally. Perdue campaigned for his first-term win in 2014 opposing any sort of “amnesty” for immigrants here illegally, and Isakson is up for re-election in 2016.

Lopez, meanwhile, sat on the board of the Georgia Association of Latino Elected Officials, which supports a path to citizenship for people here illegally. It also has fought tougher state laws on immigration and praised local sheriffs who refused federal “hold” requests for immigrants.

“There would be a political price to pay for either conservative United States senator, one of them running for re-election, letting it go to the committee process with everything that’s been revealed about GALEO,” said D.A. King, an activist who has led the charge against Lopez.

But the price could come due either way.

“Latinos in Georgia are looking at this very closely,” said Jerry Gonzalez, the executive director of GALEO.

“Caught up in Senate process

*After Lopez was appointed a judge in 2010 by Gov. Sonny Perdue, he abstained from GALEO’s policy votes and fundraising, Gonzalez said.”

Uh, uh. Nope. (We hope you read the rest of the report.)

Always loose with that inconvenient truth, GALEO’s Jerry Gonzalez has misled the AJC reporter, Daniel Malloy here.

As anyone (but likely not the AJC’s Politifact editors) will see, according to GALEO’s online invitation Dax Lopez was the keynote speaker at the May, 2011 8th annual GALEO “Power Breakfast” – which GALEO describes as “one of the principle fundraising events for GALEO & the GALEO Latino Community Development Fund.”

Lopez was appointed to state court in August, 2010.

May, 2011 is after August 2010. Keynote speakers serve as the draw for attendees (donors) to fundraisers and help the corporation increase attendance and thereby operating revenue.

Judge Dax Lopez helped anti-enforcement GALEO Inc. raise money well after he was on the bench. And Jerry Gonzalez is well aware of that fact when he spoke to the AJC’s Malloy.

Jerry Gonzalez. Pants on Fire.

Here is a list of hosts for Dax Lopez’s recent campaign fundraiser.

We like this shot from the funder of Lopez and GALEO’s Angry Jerry Gonzalez. Anyone who wants to see more than eighty additional photos from the funder and the attendees can click HERE. ( Hat tip Phil Kent )

State court Judge Dax Lopez (left) GALEO Executive Director Jerry Gonzalez from a @JudgeDaxLopez Twitter post featuring photos of his recent fundraiser for re-election.

It appears he understands that his position on the board of directors for the anti-enforcement GALEO for eleven years has apparently killed his chances of being another Obama-appointed activist federal judge.

We are happy-dance proud to have shared the facts on GALEO with our two U.S. Senators, the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee members and the rest of Georgia.

As always, we are grateful to Tim Bryant for the time and professionalism.

7 minutes.

98.7 FM & A< 1340, Athens. WGAU

Senator Michael Williams letter to Senator Isakson

Senator Michael Williams letter to Senator Perdue

Letter from Hispanic Patriots to U.S. Senators Isakson and Perdue

CRWNA2-letter-ToSenPerdue-2015Oct14

Good news for pro-enforcement Americans! More state legislators appeal to our U.S. senators: “NO! to Dax Lopez!”

More Republican Georgia state legislator’s added to the list of letter-writers urging Georgia’s U.S. Senators to take action to insure that anti-enforcement GALEO’s recently resigned board member, Dax Lopez, does not see confirmation as a federal judge.

We are informed that state senators, Marty Harbin, Steve Gooch, Rene Unterman, Mike Crane, Josh McKoon and Bill Heath were proud co-signers on the letter linked HERE by state Senator William Ligon. Note that several of them also sent different letters from their own offices as well.

State Rep Katie Dempsey tells me she sent letters of opposition to both U.S. senators, but “did not keep a copy” to forward here. And Rep. Clay Pirkle has explained to one of his constituents that he also sent letters against confirmation of Dax Lopez, but is unwilling to provide a copy for public posting. Representative Dustin Hightower also sent a letter, but did not reply to a request for a copy for public posting.

We are assured there are more letters being drafted.

Note: We are grateful to Insider Advantage Georgia for assuming credit for the work involved in organizing resistance to the Dax Lopez nomination and “collecting letters”…it is very educational – and memorable.