Stare Decisis: Not Quite What Senator Schumer Would Have You Believe

Stare Decisis: Not Quite What Senator Schumer

Would Have You Believe

By Clarice Feldman

Led by Senator Charles Schumer, Senate Democrats are trying to bamboozle the American public into believing that Bush appointees to the Supreme Court are dangerous radicals.

Senator Schumer’s suggestion and Justice Beyer’s unusual and inappropriate complaint to Senator Specter that the newest members of the Supreme Court — Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Alito — are ignoring and overruling established precedent is of a piece with the mandarinate’s general and untrue response to the Administration: the Mongols have taken over.
I have reviewed the law on stare decisis (the doctrine that judges should rule in accord with past precedent to be sure that the legal guidelines are predictable and non-chaotic). It is a doctrine which has much to commend it, but it is often confused and confusing. I have compared what Justice Breyer and Justices Roberts and Alito said of the doctrine at their confirmation hearings and reviewed these eight opinions which seem to have been the source of the charge:

• Bell Atlantic Corporation et al.,v. Twombley et al. 127 S. Ct.1955;
• Bowles,  v. Russell, 127 S. Ct. 2360;
• Federal Election Commission v. Wisconsin Right To Life, Inc.127 S.Ct.2652;
• Gonzales v. Carhart et al. 127 S. Ct 1610;
• Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire, 127 S. Ct. 2553;
• Leegin Creative  v. PSKS ,127 S.Ct. 2705;
• Mose v. Frederick,127 S.Ct. 2618;
• Parents Involved v. Seattle Schools,127 S.Ct. 2738.

As I will explain in greater detail in this and following articles, I believe the charge is a false one, a pretextual one, in fact. It is the substantive rulings which the critics dislike, not the legal reasoning. The charge amounts to a bit of legerdemain aimed at a public not familiar with the doctrine, a public whose principal source of information about the Court and its rulings is a media unwilling or unable to examine the charge on its merits. This one-two-punch by Democrats and the media has created a distorted view among the public of the Court’s methods and rulings.
In other legal systems where the courts are all part of a national system, the doctrine is perhaps more easily understood. In a federal republic as ours is, it is slightly more complicated. Thus, a lower court in the federal system is bound more closely to apply the law as established by the Court of Appeals over it, and even more constricted in departures from the rulings by the Supreme Court. Except on matters of interpretation of state law, federal courts have little obligation to pay any attention to State Court rulings in determining a later case. But there is no need for much discussion on this interesting point as the harder question and the one at issue here is the Supreme Court’s adherence to its own precedents.
But remember when reading a Supreme Court case, each ruling is based on the facts before the Court, and those facts largely depend on the presentation of the case in the lowest court where the matter originated. That first court is the finder of fact and rarely overruled on such findings, provided the opinion is not an irrational adjudication on the record. It also depends on the skill of counsel — an important issue may have been overlooked by the petitioner, and the Court is rather bound in its decision-making to what was briefed and argued before it. The Supreme Court is not free to hold hearings and make its own factual findings or to interject into the decision-making process points of law not previously raised by the parties themselves in a timely fashion. Despite all the confused and confusing explications of when prior decisions should be followed, in the end whether the subsequent ruling is correct or not depends largely upon a close reading of the facts of both cases.
Factors weighing on the applicability of precedent
One factor to consider is whether the older ruling has held the test of time. Is it in retrospect so irrational and creating so much chaos itself that there is little reason to continue down that path?  
Was the statement in the prior case which the Court is being urged to follow, essential to the earlier ruling? Or was it  obiter dicta (often just referred to as “dicta”), an off-hand comment by one or more judges on a matter that was irrelevant to the earlier decision and one not fully briefed or argued? We have an adversary system in our courts because we believe it provides the decision-makers the most complete understanding of the issues and law. There is absolutely no reason to give weight to a point of law which never was decided on the basis of a thorough examination and debate.
Yet another factor to weigh is whether the decision is one regularly relied on in ordinary business and property  transactions such that any departure from it would cause undue confusion and disruption?
And last but not least, of the things to remember when reading the various Court statements on stare decisis, is whether the original decision is a proper explication of the Constitution, the primary law of the land.
These are not the only factors to consider in deciding whether to give great weight to prior rulings, but they are significant ones and, as I hope you can see, they are all perfectly logical — although at times different judges dispute the application of some of these principles in any given case.
The Supreme Court does not automatically hear all appeals to it. Cases which are chosen are usually on hotly contested difficult legal issues. Often different Courts of Appeals have taken different views on the same or closely related matters so that one could certainly expect that the nine perfectly honorable and intelligent judges would see the matter before them from far different points of view. And it is perfectly understandable that new viewpoints are more likely with each change of the composition of the Court. Given that, it is to be expected that Justices Roberts and Alito, viewing matters as new justices, would on occasion have a different perspective than those judges they succeeded to the Court. But as I will show in a subsequent article, each and every decision by them, in context, was supported by the long-standing principles at the very heart of the doctrine that deference is due (under appropriate circumstances) to prior decisions.
The final thing I’d like you to remember about stare decisis is that the very doctrine itself is given far less weight with respect to Constitutional issues than with respect to statutory or common law decisions.

“Stare decisis is usually the wise policy, because in most matters it is more important that the applicable rule of law be settled than that it be settled right…. This is commonly true even where the error is a matter of serious concern, provided correction can be had by legislation. But in cases involving the Federal Constitution, where correction through legislative action is practically impossible, this Court has often overruled its earlier decisions. The Court bows to the lessons of experience and the force of better reasoning, recognizing that the process of trial and error so fruitful in the physical sciences, is appropriate also in the judicial function.” -Burnet v. Coronado Oil & Gas Co., 285 U.S. 393, 406-408 (1932) (Justice Brandeis dissenting).

In the years 1946-1992, the U.S. Supreme Court reversed itself in about 130 cases.  The Court has explained as follows:

[W]hen convinced of former error, this Court has never felt constrained to follow precedent. In constitutional questions, where correction depends upon amendment, and not upon legislative action, this Court throughout its history has freely exercised its power to reexamine the basis of its constitutional decisions. Smith v. Allwright, 321 U.S. 649, 665 (1944).

Indeed, if precedent were always followed, among the rulings that would still be in effect today are those that permitted slavery, separate-but-equal treatment of citizens based on race and the forced internment of Americans based on their national origin.
Should overruling an earlier opinion (based on a view that it misread the Constitution) be less warranted if the opinion is very recent? I agree with Justice Scalia, that such an approach is illogical. -Scalia dissent South Carolina v. Gathers, 490 U.S. 805,825 (1989):

Overrulings of precedent rarely occur without a change in the Court’s personnel. The only distinctive feature here is that the overruling would follow not long after the original decision. But that is hardly unprecedented. See, e.g., Daniels v. Williams, 474 U.S. 327, 330-331 (1986) (overruling Parratt v. Taylor, 451 U.S. 527 (1981)); United States v. Scott, 437 U.S. 82, 86-87 (1978) (overruling United States v. Jenkins, 420 U.S. 358 (1975)); West Virginia Board of Education v. Barnette, 319 U.S. 624, 642 (1943) (overruling Minersville School District Board of Education v. Gobitis, 310 U.S. 586 (1940)). Indeed, I had thought that the respect accorded prior decisions increases, rather than decreases, with their antiquity, as the society adjusts itself to their existence, and the surrounding law becomes premised upon their validity. The freshness of error not only deprives it of the respect to which long-established practice is entitled, but also counsels that the opportunity of correction be seized at once, before state and federal laws and practices have been adjusted to embody it.[/quote]

Former Justices Douglas and O’Connor’s have expressed similar views. Douglas, Stare Decisis, 49 Colum.L.Rev. 735, 736 (1949). Or as the Court itself has said:

[W]hen convinced of former error, this Court has never felt constrained to follow precedent. In constitutional questions, where correction depends upon amendment, and not upon legislative action, this Court throughout its history has freely exercised its power to reexamine the basis of its constitutional decisions. -Smith v. Allwright, 321 U.S. 649, 665 (1944).

Once a law-abiding society has revised its laws and practices to comply with such an erroneous decision, [p825] the existence of a new “consensus” can be appealed to — or at least the existence of the preexisting consensus to the contrary will no longer be evident — thus enabling the error to triumph by our very failure promptly to correct it. Cf. Thompson v. Oklahoma, 487 U.S. 815, 854-855 (1988) (O’CONNOR, J., concurring in judgment).

Clarice Feldman is an attorney in Washington, DC

Meet the Domestic Enemy

Meet the Domestic Enemy
By John Perazzo
FrontPageMagazine.com | March 20, 2007
No foreign enemy could have engineered a strategy more likely to cripple America’s war effort in Iraq than has the homegrown political Left. Modeled after the age-old technique of inducing “cultural pessimism” by means of relentless criticism, it is a strategy that casts the U.S. as a nation motivated by nothing more noble than a dual lust for oil and empire; a nation guilty of unspeakable war crimes and human rights violations; a nation morally unfit to impose its will on any other government in the world; and a nation doomed to fail militarily against a foe whose resistance is allegedly inspired by a high-minded, inextinguishable yearning to free itself from the yoke of American oppression. Promoted by political charlatans and sympathetic media outlets, this depiction aims to demoralize the American people and crush their political will to do what is necessary to win the war.

A significant element of this strategy was hatched on June 16, 2005, when 41 Democratic members of the House of Representatives formally announced that they had established the Out of Iraq Congressional Caucus (OICC), an entity dedicated to agitating for a swift withdrawal of U.S. troops from the Iraqi theater of war – alleging that the 2003 American invasion had been launched on the pretext of lies and deliberately manipulated intelligence. The nominal co-founders of OICC were Maxine Waters (who chairs the organization), Lynn Woolsey, John Conyers, Charles Rangel, Barbara Lee, Jan Schakowsky, William Delahunt, and John R. Lewis.

Today OICC is composed of 75 House members, all Democrats. Forty-two of those 75 individuals belong to the Progressive Caucus, the Democratic Party’s socialist wing. Seeking to radically transform American society, the Progressive Caucus advocates socialized medicine, wholesale redistribution of wealth, the elimination of numerous provisions of the Patriot Act, dramatic reductions in the government’s intelligence-gathering capabilities, and the quick withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq. In a 1999 position paper on economic inequality, the Progressive Caucus openly rejected capitalism:

Economic inequality is the result of two and a half decades of government policies and rules governing the economy being tilted in favor of large-asset owners at the expense of wage earners. Tax policy, trade policy, monetary policy, government regulations and other rules have reflected this pro-investor bias. We propose the introduction or reintroduction of a package of legislative initiatives that will close America’s economic divide and address both income and wealth disparities.

Such are the values to which nearly 60 percent of OICC members subscribe.

Announcing OICC’s formation on June 21, 2005, Maxine Waters charged that nearly 2,000 U.S. soldiers had already lost their lives fighting on behalf of untruths the Bush administration had told them. “Many of them went to serve because they thought that Saddam Hussein was responsible for 9/11,” said Waters. “But, of course, we know now that Saddam Hussein was not responsible for 9/11, and many of the soldiers know that now…We all know now there were no Weapons of Mass Destruction.” (Waters’ false implication was that President Bush had blamed Iraq for 9/11. Moreover, she apparently was unaware of former Iraqi General Georges Sada’s monumentally important account of how Saddam shipped his WMDs out of Iraq in late 2002.)

Waters then quoted an assertion made by no less an authority than Cindy Sheehan: “The leadership of this country rushed us into an illegal invasion of another sovereign country on prefabricated and cherry-picked intelligence.” Conspicuous by its absence was any mention of the fact that during the pre-Iraq War period, there was no country on earth whose intelligence agency did not believe unequivocally that Saddam possessed such weapons. Neither did Waters mention that during that same period, a large number of major Democrats had publicly declared their certainty that Saddam’s WMDs posed a grave threat to American security (see here, here, here, and here). Nor did Waters mention that every Democrat serving on the Senate and House Intelligence Committees had access to the same information as President Bush. Instead, she implied that the president had somehow hidden from those Committee members some vital nugget of evidence that, had they only been made aware of it, would have convinced them that the WMDs did not exist.

Add to this the fact that she long accused the CIA of selling crack to American ghetto children, and one is forced to conclude that Maxine Waters is a lying, deceitful political hack.

In that regard, she is not alone among OICC’s co-founders. At the same event on June 21, 2005, Representative Barbara Lee said, “We know that the administration misled the American people and the world that there were no Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq. We knew that then.”

In a similar spirit, Lynn Woolsey stepped to the microphone and accused the Bush administration of sending soldiers “to do a job that was not necessary…There is no excuse for the United States to have started a war in Iraq.” It was vital, she added, to “work with the international world, get them all involved, so we can be doing the right thing for Iraq and the Iraqi people who are also being destroyed by this war.” She did not elaborate on how the U.S. might suddenly be able to harness the goodwill and involvement of an international community that has repeatedly shown itself, by and large, to be content to let America lead the way in dealing with every international crisis that arises, and, like a pack of bloated, imbibing spectators at a football game, do nothing more productive than ridicule America’s every move from their proverbial sideline seats.

OICC co-founder Charles Rangel, for his part, took a swipe at the entire system by which the U.S. military’s ranks had been filled, suggesting that new recruits came disproportionately not “from communities that chief executive officers live in,” but rather from “where the hopeless are in terms of unemployment.” Accusing the United States of “rattling swords in North Korea” and “threatening Syria and Iran,” he recommended the softer approach of “go[ing] to the international community…and persuad[ing] those countries that terrorism is not just an American problem, it is an international problem, and with mutual respect, sit down and talk with them to see how we can bring peace to the Middle East.” It would be most fascinating to see Mr. Rangel try to “persuade” Kim Jong Il, Bashar al-Assad, and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to take up the cause of “peace.”

To determine whether OICC’s leaders are worthy of the American people’s trust vis-a-vis matters of national security, it is instructive to examine what those leaders have actually done thus far to earn that confidence. Following is a synopsis of how the eight co-founders of OICC have voted on some of the most crucial security matters of the past decade:

• On September 29, 2006, seven of the eight voted no to the Military Commissions Act of 2006, a bill authorizing military commissions to try unlawful enemy combatants charged with war crimes and acts of terrorism. (John Lewis did not cast a ballot on this bill.)
• On September 28, 2006, all except Lewis (who again cast no ballot) voted no on the Electronic Surveillance Modernization Act, a bill authorizing the government to use electronic surveillance to investigate potential terrorists (provided that the President notifies the congressional intelligence committees and a Federal Intelligence Surveillance Act judge), and empowering the Attorney General to initiate emergency electronic surveillance (so long as he applies for a judicial order within one week of launching such an investigation).
• On September 21, 2006, all eight voted no on the Immigration Law Enforcement Act, which affirmed the authority of state and local police to assist in the enforcement of federal immigration laws.
• On September 14, 2006, all except Delahunt voted no on the Security Fence Act, a bill calling for the construction of 700 miles of double-layered fencing along the U.S.-Mexico border, and authorizing the Secretary of Homeland Security to take all necessary steps to prevent the unlawful entry of immigrants into the United States.
• On June 29, 2006, all eight voted no on an Intelligence and Law Enforcement Resolution “supporting…programs to track terrorists and terrorist finances” and “condemning the disclosure and publication of classified information that impairs the international fight against terrorism and needlessly exposes Americans to the threat of further terror attacks by revealing a crucial method by which terrorists are traced through their finances.”
• On June 16, 2006, all eight voted no on a Global War on Terror Resolution, which stated that it was not in the interest of American security to set an arbitrary date for the withdrawal of troops from Iraq, and which committed the U.S. to the “completion of the mission to create a sovereign, free, secure and united Iraq.”
• On December 16, 2005, all eight voted no on a Border Security bill calling for the construction of 700 miles of fencing along the U.S.-Mexican border; requiring the Secretary of Homeland Security to upgrade border surveillance and control; establishing an employment eligibility verification system forbidding the hiring of illegal aliens; facilitating the deportation of illegals; and earmarking $250 million annually to help state and local police agencies assist federal authorities in enforcing immigration laws.
• On July 21, 2005, all eight voted no on the USA PATRIOT and Terrorism Prevention Reauthorization Act, whose purpose was to extend the FBI’s authority to conduct “roving wiretaps” and access certain business records through December 31, 2009, and to make the remaining provisions of the PATRIOT Act permanent. (Incidentally, fully 71 of OICC’s 73 members voted no on this same bill. The other two caucus members did not vote for it because they were forbidden: Donna M. Christensen and Eleanor Holmes Norton are non-voting Delegates from the U.S. Virgin Islands and the District of Columbia, respectively.)
• On February 10, 2005, all eight OICC co-founders voted no on the Real ID Act, which was aimed at preventing people from abusing the state driver’s license process to obtain false identification, and expanding the legal definition of “terrorist organization” and “engaged in terrorist activity,” as those terms pertain to U.S. immigration law.
• On May 18, 2004, all except Rangel (who did not cast a ballot) voted no on the Homeland Security Department Authorization Act, a bill requiring hospitals to provide information on undocumented immigrants seeking emergency medical care; making employers of some illegals financially responsible for the medical treatment of the latter; and facilitating the deportation of illegals.
• On March 17, 2004, all eight voted no on the War in Iraq Anniversary Resolution, which proposed the adoption of a resolution stating that the world and the United States were safer with Saddam Hussein having been removed from power in Iraq.
• On October 24, 2001, six of the eight voted no on the USA PATRIOT Act, which was designed to increase law enforcement’s authority to search homes, tap phone lines, and track Internet use of those suspected of terrorism; to allow law-enforcement and intelligence agencies to share grand jury and other information about suspected terrorist activities; and to strengthen security on American borders. (Rangel and Delahunt voted in favor of the measure.)
• On October 12, 2001, all eight voted no on the Anti-Terrorism Act of 2001, designed to give the federal government a broad range of powers to combat terrorism; to ease restrictions on government wiretap and surveillance operations; to permit the sharing of such information between government officials; and to strengthen security along the United States/Canadian border. (Note: This bill would be incorporated into the USA PATRIOT Act twelve days later.)
• On April 18, 1996, the four OICC co-founders who were members of Congress at that time all voted no on the Comprehensive Terrorism Prevention Act, a bill whose provisions sought to prohibit fundraising by terrorist groups in the U.S. and to expedite the process of deporting illegal aliens and suspected terrorists.
• On March 14, 1996, the four OICC co-founders who were members of Congress at that time all voted no on an Antiterrorism Bill whose intent was to give the federal government greater leeway in investigating, prosecuting, and punishing terrorists.

Of OICC’s 73 members, 29 were signatories to a May 14, 2005, letter to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales calling for a special prosecutor to investigate claims that “high-ranking officials within the Bush Administration [had] violated the War Crimes Act…or the Anti-Torture Act…by allowing the use of torture techniques banned by domestic and international law at recognized and secret detention sites in Iraq, Afghanistan Guantanamo Bay and elsewhere.” “One year and 10 investigations after we first learned about the atrocities committed at Abu Ghraib,” the letter stated, “there has yet to be a comprehensive, neutral and objective investigation with prosecutorial authority of who is ultimately responsible for the abuses there and elsewhere…If the United States is to wipe away the stain of Abu Ghraib, it needs to investigate those at the top who ordered or condoned torture.”

There you have it. OICC has covered every angle. It has:

a. branded the Iraq War immoral and illegal, in essence characterizing it as an act of national mass murder;

b. focused an immense amount of attention on the alleged abuses at Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, and Haditha;

c. showed not only a willingness but an eagerness to embrace in toto the enemy’s version of what occurred at those places;

d. portrayed those U.S. troops who stand accused of wrongdoing as savage, undisciplined marauders whose actions have destroyed America’s image in the eyes of the world; and

e. cited incidents of collateral Iraqi civilian deaths as further evidence of America’s indiscriminate barbarism.

This endless stream of condemnation and accusation has had its intended effect: It has spooked the Bush administration into imposing foolishly restrictive rules of engagement on American troops, tightly circumscribing the conditions under which they are permitted to fire upon the enemy and thereby placing them in great peril. Fearful of the Left’s mushrooming criticism, the administration has sought to placate reporters, activists, and political self-promoters alike by waging a half-hearted police-style occupation rather than winning and finishing the war. Instead of cordoning off and utterly crushing the Sunni Triangle and similar pockets of resistance with an air campaign prior to sending ground troops into those areas, the administration has sought to minimize collateral casualties by deploying soldiers (shackled by the aforementioned rules of engagement) to fight at close quarters against untold numbers of hidden enemies in the streets and alleyways of Iraq. This comparatively restrained modus operandi has succeeded in winning the hearts and minds of no one – either at home or abroad, Republican or Democrat. Its chief effect has been to increase the death toll not only of U.S. troops but also, ultimately, of Iraqi civilians, who are killed each day in the blasts of car bombs and suicide missions carried out by sadists who should have been eliminated long ago.

Yet in a shameless display of political opportunism, OICC’s members now anoint themselves the champions of those servicemen and servicewomen whose lives were snuffed out as a result of the very timidity promoted by OICC.

Because of its positions on the war and how it should (or should not) be waged, OICC has developed a solid alliance with the antiwar group Code Pink for Peace. In July 2006, Lynn Woolsey, to demonstrate her Caucus’s support for Code Pink’s “Troops Home Fast” national hunger strike, announced that she would make the great sacrifice of refraining from eating for one day as a symbol of her antiwar convictions.

Code Pink, it should be noted, was co-founded by the pro-Fidel Castro, pro-Hugo Chavez communist activists Medea Benjamin and Jodi Evans. In 2004, this organization helped establish Iraq Occupation Watch, whose stated objective was to thin out U.S. forces in Iraq by causing soldiers to seek discharges as conscientious objectors. During the last week of December 2004, Code Pink joined Global Exchange and Families for Peace in donating a combined $600,000 in medical supplies and cash to the families of the terrorist insurgents who were fighting American troops in Fallujah, Iraq.

Code Pink and the Out of Iraq Congressional Caucus are ideological soul mates. Unfortunately for America, the OICC can do something Code Pink cannot do: set American policy.

The Progressive Caucus is an organization of Members of Congress founded in 1991 by newly-elected Representative Bernie Sanders (Independent-Vermont), the former socialist mayor of Burlington and a member of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), which describes itself as “the principal U.S. affiliate of the Socialist International.”

www.DiscoverTheNetwork.org	Date: 10/21/2006 3:36:23 PM
PROGRESSIVE CAUCUS (DEMOCRATIC)
c/o Rep. Dennis Kucinich, co-chairman 1730 Longworth House Office Building Washington, DC 20515	Phone :202-225-5871 URL :http://bernie.house.gov/pc/
Radical caucus of more than 50 members of the House of Representatives Until 1999, worked in open partnership with Democratic Socialists of America The Progressive Caucus is an organization of Members of Congress founded in 1991 by newly-elected Representative Bernie Sanders (Independent-Vermont), the former socialist mayor of Burlington and a member of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), which describes itself as “the principal U.S. affiliate of the Socialist International.” The Progressive Caucus today includes Sanders and more than 60 other members of the House of Representatives, all of them leftist Democrats and almost all in districts heavily gerrymandered to guarantee the re-election of any Democratic Party incumbent, no matter how extreme. On November 11, 1999, the Progressive Caucus drafted its Position Paper on economic inequality. It reads, in part, as follows: “Economic inequality is the result of two and a half decades of government policies and rules governing the economy being tilted in favor of large asset owners at the expense of wage earners. Tax policy, trade policy, monetary policy, government regulations and other rules have reflected this pro-investor bias. We propose the introduction or reintroduction of a package of legislative initiatives that will close America’s economic divide and address both income and wealth disparities. … The concentration of wealth is a problem because it distorts our democracy, destabilizes the economy and erodes our social and cultural fabric.”In order “to bring new life to the progressive voice in U.S. politics,” the Progressive Caucus has worked closely with Progressive Challenge, a project of the Institute for Policy Studies. Progressive Challenge is a coalition through which the activities and talking points of leftist groups are synchronized and harmonized with one another, producing coordinated, mutually-reinforcing propaganda from some 200 seemingly-unconnected groups.T he Progressive Caucus recently crafted its “Progressive Promise” document, which advocates socialized medicine; radical environmentalism; the redistribution of wealth; the elimination of numerous provisions of the Patriot Act; dramatic reductions in the government’s intelligence-gathering capabilities, debt relief for poor countries; and the quick withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq. These measures, says the Progressive Caucus, would help “re-build U.S. alliances around the world, restore international respect for American power and influence, and reaffirm our nation’s constructive engagement in the United Nations and other multilateral organizations.”Until 1999 the Progressive Caucus worked in open partnership with Democratic Socialists of America. After the press reported on this link, the connections suddenly vanished from both organizations’ websites. As of June 2006, the following Members of Congress belonged to the Progressive Caucus: Neil Abercrombie; Tammy Baldwin; Xavier Becerra; Madeleine Z. Bordallo; Corrine Brown; Sherrod Brown; Michael Capuano; Julia Carson; Donna Christensen; William “Lacy” Clay; Emanuel Cleaver; John Conyers; Elijah Cummings; Danny Davis; Peter DeFazio; Rosa DeLauro; Lane Evans; Sam Farr; Chaka Fattah; Bob Filner; Barney Frank; Raul Grijalva; Luis Gutierrez; Maurice Hinchey; Jesse Jackson, Jr.; Sheila Jackson-Lee; Stephanie Tubbs Jones; Marcy Kaptur; Carolyn Kilpatrick; Dennis Kucinich; Tom Lantos; Barbara Lee; John Lewis; Ed Markey; Jim McDermott; James P. McGovern; Cynthia McKinney; George Miller; Gwen Moore; Jerrold Nadler; Eleanor Holmes Norton; John Olver; Major Owens; Ed Pastor; Donald Payne; Nancy Pelosi; Charles Rangel; Bobby Rush; Bernie Sanders; Jan Schakowsky; Jose Serrano; Louise Slaughter; Hilda Solis; Pete Stark; Bennie Thompson; John Tierney; Tom Udall; Nydia Velazquez; Maxine Waters; Diane Watson; Mel Watt; Henry Waxman; and Lynn Woolsey.