More criticisms of Sensenbrenner’s “oversight”

In recent days, there has been still more criticism of the remarkable letters that House Judiciary Chairman James Sensenbrenner wrote to the Chief Judge of the Seventh Circuit and to AG Alberto Gonzales concerning the decision in US v. Rivera (background here, commentary here and here).   

As detailed in this Chicago Tribune article, the American Judicature Society on Thursday condemned Sensenbrenner’s actions.  Here is a press release from AJS, which has a lot of harsh word for Sensenbrenner as it assails “his arrogance in purporting to speak for the American people when attempting to bully federal judges.” The Chair of the AJS Task Force on Judicial Independence and Accountability asserts “what the American people have most to fear is congressional activism threatening the independence of the judiciary under a spurious banner of accountability.” 

In a similar vein, this editorial from the Montgomery Advertiser entitled “Separation of powers should be respected” states that “[t]o see the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee make a written demand for changes in a federal court decision is truly disturbing.”  This editorial, and a prior one noted here, show that some smaller newspapers are already speaking out on this issue; I wonder if we will see some bigger papers follw suit.