Judge Leslie Southwick’s memoir is a revealing look at Washington’s endless and increasingly personal fights over judicial nominations–something many senators, including myself, have worked to stop. I never expected the judge and I would agree on every issue, but that wasn’t the point. After reviewing his record and getting to know him, I came to believe he was a well-qualified and experienced jurist who could faithfully apply the law. That was the point, and it was why I supported his nomination to the Fifth Circuit.–Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-California)
Judge Southwick survived a confirmation process that belied his excellent qualifications and experience. He has reflected credit on those who stood with him and supported his appointment to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals.–Senator Thad Cochran (R-Mississippi)
This is a must-read for anyone concerned with judicial confirmation politics and the dysfunctional U.S. Senate. Judge Southwick offers a personal, richly detailed, balanced, and well-written account of his journey through the confirmation maze. His book additionally offers insights into the judicial selection process, Mississippi politics, and Mississippi state judicial politics. This is a book that can be appreciated by any fair-minded person.–Sheldon Goldman, Distinguished Professor of Political Science, University of Massachusetts at Amherst, and author of Picking Federal Judges: Lower Court Selection from Roosevelt through Reagan
Southwick writes that his book is ‘at its most basic level a plea for reconciliation among those who battle in judicial wars.’ Those wars, however, are unlikely to abate so long as the two parties disagree, as they so sharply do, over the role of the courts and how judges should interpret and apply the law. This well-written and engaging tale of a nomination almost undone thus promises to have an ongoing audience, perhaps including someone as eager as the author once was to become a judicial nominee.–Terry Eastland, executive editor “The Weekly Standard”
Throughout the book, Southwick is witty without being overly clever. The man’s warmth and geniality come through on the page. After Southwick’s nomination clears committee and reaches the Senate floor, Arlen Specter explains Southwick’s ultimate success with the committee by saying ‘many people helped, but the key person was [Southwick himself] and how [he] came across to people. Nice.’
In documenting his experiences as he has, Judge Leslie Southwick provides an informative history of the judicial nomination process, but he also humanizes a journey most of us will never take. No matter what you might have thought of the judge’s jurisprudence or political affiliations prior to reading the book, by the end of The Nominee, you want to confirm Leslie Southwick.–Tamara Tabo “Above the Law”
About the Author
Leslie H. Southwick, Jackson, Mississippi, is Circuit Judge for the United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit.
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