Texans aspiring to become U.S. attorneys and U.S. district judges have plenty of reason to be confused. Texas’ two Republican U.S. senators — John Cornyn and Kay Bailey Hutchison — have claimed they will screen candidates for the Democratic White House to consider. Not so, says U.S. Rep. Lloyd Doggett , D-Austin, who says on March 25 he reconfirmed with the White House that the Texas Democratic congressional delegation will choose the candidates. Doggett says he met with White House Counsel Greg Craig in February and in March to establish and re-establish the protocol: The Texas Democratic congressional delegation, which he chairs, selects candidates, not the Republican senators, and applications should be sent to Doggett. On March 25, the White House released a statement that said, “The White House supports the Texas Democratic delegation’s established process for reviewing and submitting candidates. Individuals seeking these positions should utilize this process to ensure full consideration by the White House. The President of the United States will make the final decision as to who will be nominated and sent to the Senate for confirmation. No federal judge, U.S. Attorney or U.S. Marshal will be nominated by the President, however, unless that person has the confirmed support of the Texas Democratic delegation. The Texas U.S. Senators will be accorded a full opportunity to share their views about each candidate whom the President proposes to nominate.” Cornyn says he and Hutchison still have a role in choosing the candidates for President Barack Obama . Cornyn says he met with Craig on March 26 and confirmed that the senators will still use the screening committee the pair relied on to choose candidates during President George W. Bush’s administration. Texas’ U.S. senators created the Federal Judicial Evaluation Committee in the 1980s to assist them in choosing U.S. district judges, U.S. attorneys and U.S. marshals. The committee currently is “admittedly stacked with” GOP lawyers, Cornyn says. He notes that he and Hutchison will put Democrats on the committee, including plaintiffs lawyers, to even things out. “We’re not looking for a fight, we’re looking for a solution and I think we’ve found one,” he says. Cornyn says as a U.S. senator he has a constitutional advice and consent role in such matters. “The day that we elect a Democrat to the Senate from Texas, they are entitled to that,” Cornyn says. “We are just recognizing the constitutional authority. . . . I am not delegating that responsibility to anybody.”
New STCL Dean Named
When James J. Alfini , president and dean of South Texas College of Law in Houston, retires Aug. 1, Donald J. Guter , who served as dean of Duquesne University School of Law in Pittsburgh from 2005 through 2008, will be his replacement. STCL, Houston’s oldest law school, announced Guter’s selection March 23. Michael S. Hays , STCL board chairman and co-chairman of the law school’s dean search committee, says the school received about 20 applicants for the post in a nationwide search and interviewed six candidates between December 2008 and March of this year before selecting Guter. Hays, a shareholder in Houston’s Hays, McConn, Rice & Pickering , writes in the release announcing Guter’s selection, “We feel extremely fortunate to have a person of his stature and caliber join the college.” Guter currently is on the faculty at Duquesne law school, where he received his law degree in 1977. He served in the U.S. Navy for 32 years, retiring in 2002 as a rear admiral, Judge Advocate General’s Corps. One of Guter’s priorities when he assumes his duties at STCL will be fundraising. “I want to get out there and raise as much money as I can so we will have the resources we need,” he says. STCL spokeswoman Sheila Hansel says Alfini, who has served as the law school’s president and dean since 2003, will remain on the STCL faculty. Alfini will take off the fall 2009 semester and return to STCL to teach mediation and professional responsibility in the spring 2010 semester, Hansel says.
