Judge Samuel Alito’s critics are once again relying on distortion and misrepresentation to malign his record. This time the focus is on death penalty cases. In a recent Los Angeles Times piece, UC Berkeley professor (and former law clerk to Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg) Goodwin Liu claimed ominously that Judge Alito’s “opinions show a troubling tendency to tolerate serious errors in capital proceedings.”

As former House Majority Leader Dick Armey would say, “You can’t be this wrong by accident.”

In South Dakota, tens of thousands of angry voters signed petitions for a ballot proposal informally known as "J.A.I.L. 4 Judges," enabling ordinary citizens to haul judges into court.

In Pennsylvania, where voters never had rejected a state Supreme Court incumbent seeking re-election, a justice was tossed from office last month because people were furious about a pay raise for state officials, including judges.

Paul J. McNulty, longtime Republican stalwart and the top federal prosecutor for the Eastern District of Virginia who grew up in Whitehall, will be nominated to fill the second-highest position in the U.S. Department of Justice.

The White House said President Bush will name Mr. McNulty the acting deputy attorney general and nominate him to fill the position permanently. Mr. McNulty, 47, is a graduate of Baldwin High School, Grove City College and Capitol University School of Law.

"Read my lips: no new taxes." These six words ultimately led to what conservatives have come to see as one of the worst betrayals in the annals of political history. As Dick Armey - who as it happens was the Texas congressman who had led the rebellion over President Bush's tax hike - might say, "the President couldn't have been this wrong by accident."

I have always been conscious of the phrase “one man, one vote.” It is America’s great leveling device.

I am not sure if all voters in Keizer have the same influence. FreedomWorks, the artist formerly known as Citizens for a Sound Economy, has decided to put three initiatives on the ballot – a state spending cap, a measure to have judges elected by geographical area, and a measure to crimp unions' ability to use collected dues for political purposes.

PORTLAND — A national conservative group has begun collecting signatures to force a statewide vote on how appellate judges should be elected, after a similar measure was rejected in 2002.

Judges for the Oregon Supreme Court and the Oregon Court of Appeals are elected on a statewide basis.

The initiative campaign organized and financed by FreedomWorks would require the Legislature to divide the state into seven districts of equal population for electing Supreme Court justices.

PORTLAND — A national conservative group has begun collecting signatures to force a statewide vote on how appellate judges should be elected, after a similar measure was rejected in 2002.

Judges for the Oregon Supreme Court and the Oregon Court of Appeals are elected on a statewide basis.

The initiative campaign organized and financed by FreedomWorks would require the Legislature to divide the state into seven districts of equal population for electing Supreme Court justices.