August 8, 2013
Private: Trailblazing Judge Patricia Wald to be Awarded Medal of Freedom
Judge Patricia Wald, Medal of Freedom, President Obama, Senate obstructionism, U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit
by Jeremy Leaming
Judge Patricia Wald, the first woman appointed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, will be awarded the Medal of Freedom by President Obama later this year.
Wald, a former ACS Board member, is among 16 recipients the White House announced today. Of Wald, the president said:
Patricia Wald is one of the most respected appellate judges of her generation. After graduating as 1 of only 11 women in her Yale University Law School class, she became the first woman appointed to the United States Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, and served as Chief Judge from 1986-1991. She later served on the International Criminal Tribunal in The Hague. Ms. Wald currently serves on the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board.
Wald retired from the bench in 1999, but as Obama noted hardly became idle. She was also honored in 2008 by Legal Times “as a ‘Visionary’ for breaking through barriers during a long career in law,” its blog notes.
This year Wald has been instrumental in pushing back against Senate Republicans led by Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) who have sought to prevent the president from filling vacancies on the D.C. Circuit, considered one of the most powerful federal appeals court circuits because of myriad cases it hears regarding constitutional concerns and challenges to federal regulation. Grassley has introduced a bill that would remove three judgeships from the 11-member D.C. Circuit under the guise that its caseload is not as burdensome as others.
Many, such as the Constitutional Accountability Center’s Judith Schaeffer, have noted the obviously political effort to keep a Democratic president from shaping the make-up of the D.C. Circuit, which currently has a distinctly conservative bent. In a recent post for CAC’s Text & History blog, Schaeffer provides plenty of documentation undermining Grassley’s argument that judgeships should be yanked from the D.C. Circuit. She notes that an April letter to the Judiciary Committee from the Judicial Conference of the United States providing assessments of staffing needs of the federal bench did not “contain any recommendation to eliminate or not fill seats on the D.C. Circuit.”
In an article for The Washington Post Wald also challenged the wobbly claims about the D.C. Circuit, noting its caseload has risen and it hears “the most complex, time-consuming, labyrinthine disputes over regulations with the greatest impact on ordinary Americans’ lives: clean air and water regulations, nuclear plant safety, health-care reform issues, insider trading and more.”
Judge Wald, who served on the ACS Board from Jan. 2004 – Dec. 2008, has broken down barriers and served her country with great distinction. It’s more than fitting that President Obama honor Wald with the prestigious Medal of Freedom. And she remains an inspiring and powerful force in the country.