AJC

Political Insider blogger Greg Bluestein:

August 26, 2016

“Leading Georgia Latino judge won’t seek state Supreme Court seat

The DeKalb County jurist who was blocked from becoming Georgia’s first Latino federal judge earlier this year has withdrawn his name from one of three vacancies on the Georgia Supreme Court.

Dax Lopez, seen as a strong contender for one of the openings, said Thursday that he’s “humbled” to have been nominated but that he wants to instead focus on his role as a DeKalb State Court judge.

Lopez – who is Jewish, Republican and Hispanic – was President Barack Obama’s nominee for a U.S. District judgeship last year. His nomination was scuttled by U.S. Sen. David Perdue after anti-illegal immigration forces in Georgia pointed to Lopez’ past association with certain Latino groups.

Lopez was among 130 attorneys nominated for the open spots – two created by legislation that boosts the court from seven justices to nine and a third left open by Chief Justice Hugh Thompson’s decision to retire in January. Several other possible contenders have also dropped out of the running, including Court of Appeals Judge Stephen Dillard.

With the three new openings, Gov. Nathan Deal has the chance to appoint a majority of the court’s bench before he leaves office in January 2019. He has already made one appointment – Keith Blackwell was tapped in June 2012 – and Presiding Justice Harris Hines also said he plans to retire before Deal’s tenure is up.

Here’s Lopez’s full statement:

Recently, someone was nice enough to submit my name for consideration for one of the open spots on the Georgia Supreme Court. While I am truly honored and humbled that someone would think me worthy enough for such an important position, I have decided not to submit an application. While it would be a great honor to serve on the highest court in Georgia, I enjoy being a trial judge and I love serving the people of DeKalb County. There are many excellent candidates seeking these posts, and I am confident that the three individuals chosen will serve the people of Georgia with honor and distinction.” HERE

August 11, 2016

Dear Governor Deal,

I was recently informed that Dax Lopez is being considered for a seat on the Georgia Supreme Court, if this is true, it is truly unfortunate for all Georgians. Mr. Lopez has served on the Board of GALEO, a radical activist organization that supports illegal immigration and strongly opposes immigration law enforcement. They also support open borders and illegal aliens.

GALEO currently supports the hiring of non-U.S. Citizens to be police officers, a dangerous and unnecessary thing to do during these trying times where we have global terrorism. We need to be tightening up on our security and safety, not providing the keys to the kingdom to those that haven’t taken an oath to serve, protect Americans, and defend our constitution.

Mr. Lopez with GALEO has:

-Organized and participated in marches in the streets of Atlanta demanding and end to any enforcement of American immigration laws;

-Lobbied against Georgia sheriffs cooperation with federal immigration law enforcement authorities and congratulated sheriffs for refusing to honor ICE detainers served on criminal deportable aliens;

-And lobbied against any state laws that inhibit the crimes of illegal immigration and illegal employment.

Dax Lopez harbors these radical views, which would serve to influence his judicial decisions to the detriment of all Georgians. I hope the commission can find other nominees that don’t have an agenda such as the one displayed by Mr. Lopez.

Respectfully,

Robert M. Trent
Senior Special Agent (Ret.)
U.S. Immigration Service

CC: Judicial Nomination Commission

PLEASE HELP STOP DAX LOPEZ FROM BECOMING A GEORGIA SUPREME COURT JUSTICE!

Forgot who and what Dax Lopez is? Having been discarded by the U.S. Senate for a federal bench seat, now the state Republican establishment wants to put him on the Georgia Supreme Court!

A reminder below, and Governor Deal’s office number is 404-656-1776

NO! to an anti-enforcement judge from the illegal alien lobby for Georgia Supreme Court!

Image: DIS

Here’s Who’s Been Nominated For the Supreme Court of Georgia So Far

Jonathan Ringel,

Daily Report
August 2, 2016

The Judicial Nominating Commission had received nominations of 79 judges and lawyers for two seats on the Supreme Court of Georgia as of 11 a.m. Tuesday.

The commission, which will recommend to Gov. Nathan Deal a list of up to five nominees for each seat, will take nominations through Monday, Aug. 8. Nominees will then have to fill out an application to be considered for an interview by the commission. (Nominations may be sent to the commission by letter, addressed to Judicial Nominating Commission, c/o Dana McGuire, 600 Peachtree N.E., Suite 5200, Atlanta, GA 30308-2216; by fax to 404-962-6919; or by email c/o dana.mcguire@troutmansanders.com.)

Later this year, the commission will help the governor fill a third opening on the high court.
In 2015, more than 200 people were nominated for three open slots on the Court of Appeals of Georgia. Nearly half of those nominated did not complete applications, showing that being nominated does not necessarily mean a nominee is interested in the post.

Below is the list of Supreme Court nominees provided by the Judicial Nominating Commission at 11 a.m. Tuesday. The Daily Report alphabetized the list but did not check spelling of names. The Daily Report will publish updated lists periodically through Monday.

Gary Alembik
Michael G. Anderson
Nina Markette Baker
Kimberly Bandoh
Richard H. Bennett
Dennis Blackmon
Todd Boyce
Elizabeth Branch
M. Gino Brogdon, Sr.
Robert Broglia
Tamara Calder
Michael L. Chidester
Michael C. Clark
Verda M. Colvin
John Blake Cunningham
Stephen L.A. Dillard
David T. Emerson
Edgar W. Ennis, Jr.
Robert Brandon Faircloth
Vincent James Faucette
Christopher Freeman
Sarah Geraghty
Sarah Gerwig-Moore
David Michael Ginsburg
Ural D. Glanville
Frederick N. Gleaton
Stephen S. Goss
Reuben Greene
Thomas Greer
Karlise Grier
Adam Hames
Sheryl E. Harrison-Mercer
Bruce S. Harvey
Denorris Heard
Avis Hornsby
Asha F. Jackson
Brian Kammer
LaTain Kell
Scott Key
Gerard B. Kleinrock
Joyce Klemmer
Christine Koehler
Wesley Allen Lambertus
Robert Leonard
* Dax Lopez
D. Todd Markle…. Read the rest at the Daily Report site (paywall)

The Atlanta Jewish Times ran an OPED last week attacking Georgia Senator David Perdue for acting to end the confirmation consideration of GALEO’s Dax Lopez for federal judge. In that opinion piece, they also had some things to say about me. Below is my response published this week.

Atlanta Jewish Times

Letters to the Editor – 2/5/16

Thanks to Sen. Perdue

The AJT editorial board recently attacked Sen. David Perdue of Georgia for his leadership and courage in stepping up to oppose the confirmation of recently resigned GALEO board member Dax Lopez for federal judge (“Our View: Dream Betrayed,” Jan. 29). In that attack the Jewish Times took a few swings at me too.

In part, I write to thank the authors of for the acknowledgment that GALEO is an advocacy group — and for quoting me accurately. We agree with Sen. Perdue that Lopez’s decade-long involvement with GALEO makes him totally unacceptable for a lifetime seat as a federal judge.

To be clear, like most leftist, anti-enforcement immigration corporations, the Georgia Association of Latino Elected Officials is innocuously named but is very clear in its agenda. Both before and after becoming a state court judge, Dax Lopez served as adviser, director and tactician for the GALEO activism against immigration enforcement.

Lopez’s statement that he “agrees with their mission” must always be viewed with the knowledge that, since 2003, the corporate-funded GALEO has viciously smeared law enforcement officers who dare to help enforce American immigration laws. GALEO has marched in the streets of Georgia for another immigration amnesty, lobbied against state e-verify laws designed to protect legal workers and against local jails honoring Immigration and Customs Enforcement holds for criminal aliens, and vehemently opposed voter ID. And they lobby against English as our official language.

The murder of Kate Steinle in San Francisco last summer was a direct result of successful advocacy against detaining criminal aliens in local jails until ICE can pick them up. For the radicals at GALEO, Steinle’s murder is merely a cost of advancing the anti-enforcement scheme.

We think the editorial board may have overlooked the federal lawsuit filed against Georgia’s Illegal Immigration Reform and Enforcement Act of 2011 by the American Civil Liberties Union, the Southern Poverty Law Center, and a host of other anti-borders groups, including GALEO. That lawsuit was heard in the same federal court in which Lopez would have served if confirmed.

Among the lawyers suing to stop enforcement of the 2011 state law aimed at protecting jobs for legal workers was Lopez’s then-fellow GALEO board member, Charles Kuck. It should not go unnoted that GALEO’s executive director, Jerry Gonzalez, is even now threatening to sue for foreign-language voter ballots in the same court.

Jerry Gonzalez

We’re not sure which possibility is worse: that the editors at the Atlanta Jewish Times agree with Lopez and GALEO on immigration enforcement or that they want to put yet another Obama-appointed activist federal judge on the bench.

We share the concerns about the content of Dax Lopez’ character. We thank and support Sen. Perdue for his action.

D.A. King, Marietta, president, Dustin Inman Society, for the board of advisers   HERE

Daily Signal
January 25, 2016

Senator Sinks Obama Court Nominee Over ‘Uncomfortable’ Views on Illegal Immigration

Phillip Wegman

A U.S. senator has scuttled President Barack Obama’s nomination of a pro-amnesty judge from his home state of Georgia in the latest skirmish over judicial nominees.

Citing Judge Dax Lopez’s work with an organization supporting amnesty for illegal immigrants, Sen. David Perdue, R-Ga., last week torpedoed Obama’s nominee to the U.S. District Court for Georgia.

In a press release, Perdue said he became “uncomfortable” with Lopez’s affiliation with the Georgia Association of Latino Elected Officials—an organization that the judge described “as very near and dear to my heart.”

Perdue blocked the Georgian’s nomination by withholding his “blue slip.” Under this longstanding Senate tradition, a senator effectively can veto a judicial nominee from his home state simply by refusing to recommend that person to the Judiciary Committee.

For 11 years, from 2004 to 2015, Lopez sat as a voting member on the board of directors of the Georgia Association of Latino Elected Officials. He held the position while serving as a judge on the State Court of DeKalb County beginning in 2010.

During his time on the board, the organization of Latino politicians supported Obama’s executive actions to allow millions of illegal immigrants to stay and work in America without being deported. The president’s widely criticized actions currently face a challenge at the U.S. Supreme Court.

In addition, the Georgia group regularly weighed in on local controversies.

In 2008, the Latino officials filed a joint lawsuit against the Georgia secretary of state, arguing that state law requiring voters to show identification at the polls unfairly burdened Hispanics.

Last year, shortly before Lopez stepped down from the board, the organization commended a local sheriff’s department for refusing to comply with deportation orders from federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents. In a press release, the group urged “other jurisdictions in the state to adopt similar policies.”

Perdue also voiced concern with “public comments” made by Lopez after he became a state judge. The senator did not specify the remarks he found troubling.

In a 2012 radio interview, however, the DeKalb County judge outlined steps that illegal immigrants, when detained, could take to avoid deportation. In addition to the advice, Lopez noted:

“That’s not to say that you’re not vulnerable to being deported if you’re just living right and following the laws. Because you’re always vulnerable in a country like this.”

Before Perdue’s blue-slip block, local legislators and law enforcement officials—including the state Senate’s majority leader and two county sheriffs—opposed Obama’s nomination of Lopez.

In an open letter in August, Cobb County Sheriff Neil Warren wrote that Lopez’s association with the Georgia Association of Latino Elected Officials suggested “a prejudice towards law-abiding citizens and law enforcement.”

But after Perdue blocked the nomination, liberal organizations opened a hailstorm of criticism in which they spotlighted Lopez’s Hispanic heritage.

The Hispanic National Bar Association dismissed concerns over Lopez’s association with the organization of Latino politicians. In a statement, association President Robert Maldonado wrote:

It is hard to fathom that we are in an era of such animosity that a judicial nominee’s participation in a trade association of bipartisan Latino elected officials is problematic …Our only inference is that he’s unacceptable to Senator Perdue because he is a Latino who believes in Latino participatory democracy.

If confirmed by the U.S. Senate, Lopez would become the first Latino judge to serve on a federal district court in Georgia.

In a statement, the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights complained that “as long as men like Senator Perdue are the gatekeepers, it’s unlikely that one ever will.”

Born in Puerto Rico, Lopez attended Vanderbilt Law School, where he was a member of the Federalist Society, a conservative legal group. As a Republican, he enjoyed support from different corners of the GOP, from the Georgia Chamber of Commerce to conservative radio host Erick Erickson.

Perdue’s veto of Lopez comes as conversations continue among Senate Republicans about blocking all of Obama’s judicial nominees.

Some advocate freezing out all future nominees. Others argue that the nomination process already has become too political.

As a freshman senator who sits on the Judiciary Committee, Perdue has demonstrated a willingness to slow down the nomination process in certain circumstances. Last year, he opposed the confirmation of Attorney General Loretta Lynch.

Also last week, Perdue voted against confirming Judge Wilhelmina Wright for District Court of Minnesota after it came to light that she had written a law review paper characterizing President Reagan as a bigot. Wright won confirmation, 58-36.   HERE

The editors seem none to happy with me either…

Atlanta Jewish Times
January 28, 2016

Our View: Perdue’s Betrayal

On Monday, Jan. 18, Georgia’s first-term U.S. senator, David Perdue, issued a brief statement honoring Martin Luther King Jr., whose “actions to advance justice continue to inspire us all to do better.” Two days later, Perdue stood in the way of justice and betrayed King’s ideals.

Perdue scuttled the U.S. District Court nomination of a fellow Republican, Dax Lopez, because of concerns about “his longstanding participation in a controversial organization.” That controversial organization isn’t the Communist Party or domestic terrorists ready to seize Fort McPherson, nor is Lopez tied to neo-Nazis or the Klan, neither of which would likely welcome the Jewish Latino from DeKalb County.

No, the dread organization is the Georgia Association of Latino Elected Officials. For Lopez, a Latino elected official as a state judge, being part of GALEO is about as radical as Congressman John Lewis being a member of the NAACP.

In fact, the NAACP, with its responses to issues of particular concern to the black community, such as police shootings and Confederate memorials, could be seen as every bit as controversial as GALEO, whose offense is activism on behalf of Hispanic immigrants, even those here illegally.

Standing up for fellow Latinos puts GALEO on the wrong side of an increasingly rabid group of activists for whom absolutism on immigration — no illegals, no amnesty, no reform, no exceptions — is the political litmus test of our time.

That group has the ear of Perdue, who gave far less time to Lopez than to people such as D.A. King, a rhetorical warrior against “the vast, corporate-funded illegal alien lobby.” To put King in perspective, he wants to oust Rep. Tom Price, one of the most conservative members of the House Republican leadership, for being too soft on immigration enforcement.

King threatened the political futures of Perdue and Sen. Johnny Isakson, who is running for re-election, if Lopez even got a hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

By custom, the Senate does not consider judicial nominations without the go-ahead of the senators from the nominee’s state. Isakson told King in a public forum that Lopez deserved a hearing. Perdue, whose cousin Sonny Perdue as governor first put Lopez on the bench in 2010, disagreed.

We’re not sure which possibility is worse: that Perdue is scared of King or that he agrees with him… READ THE REST HERE

PRESS RELEASE HERE 

Letter sent to Senator Perdue HERE

From the America First Latinos website

America First Latinos is a coalition made up of proud American Latinos!

Our members take pride in being Latinos, but most importantly being Americans. We believe in The Constitution while embracing our culture. Our focus is on the issues impacting the Latin American community and our families. The vast majority of Latino citizens solidly support the U.S. Constitution and a secure border. We believe in the rule of law, hard work and the American Dream.