Obama Now Selling Judgeships for Health Care Votes

obama_smoke.jpgAccording to the Weekly Standard, Obama will host ten House Democrats tonight who voted against the health care bill in November at the White House. He is obviously trying to persuade them to switch their votes to yes. One of the ten is Jim Matheson of Utah. The White House just sent out a press release announcing that today Obama nominated Matheson’s brother Scott M. Matheson, Jr. to the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit. Coindence? The 10 Democrats attending the White House tonight were listed by Obama slurper NBC’s Chuck Todd, Altmire, Boyd, L Davis, Herseth-Sandlin, Kratovil, Markey, Matheson, Murphy, Shuler and Tanner.

“Scott Matheson is a distinguished candidate for the Tenth Circuit court,” President Obama said. “Both his legal and academic credentials are impressive and his commitment to judicial integrity is unwavering. I am honored to nominate this lifelong Utahn to the federal bench.”

Scott M. Matheson, Jr.: Nominee for the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit

Scott M. Matheson currently holds the Hugh B. Brown Presidential Endowed Chair at the S.J. Quinney College of Law, University of Utah, where he has been a member of the faculty since 1985. He served as Dean of the Law School from 1998 to 2006. He also taught First Amendment Law at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government from 1989 to 1990.

While on public service leave from the University of Utah from 1993 to 1997, Matheson served as United States Attorney for the District of Utah. In 2007, he was appointed by Governor Jon Huntsman to chair the Utah Mine Safety Commission. He also worked as a Deputy County Attorney for Salt Lake County from 1988 to 1989. Prior to joining the University faculty, Matheson was an associate attorney from 1981 to 1985 at Williams & Connolly LLP in Washington, D.C.

Matheson was born and raised in Utah and is a sixth generation Utahn. He received an A.B. from Stanford University in 1975, an M.A. from Oxford University, where he was a Rhodes Scholar, and a J.D. from Yale Law School in 1980.

So, Scott Matheson appears to have the credentials to be a judge, but was his nomination used to buy off his brother’s vote?

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March 3, 2010 · Filed Under General Politics


Comments

  • Lynn

    WHY would Obama’s Chicago politics surprise anyone?

  • Lynn

    Hey…Messiah.

    What about that campaign promise that no senior citizen making less than $50,000 would have to pay a “dime” in taxes.

    Must have been smoking my “peace pipe” when I heard you say that.