CHEYENNE -- Nearly two years after his nomination as a U.S. District Court judge in Wyoming, Richard Honaker said he doesn't need federal notification that his nomination isn't going anywhere.
"I haven't taken new cases for nearly two years," the 57-year-old Rock Springs attorney said Thursday in an interview. "I essentially closed my practice. I need to put a few groceries on the table."
Honaker's nomination was stymied by opposition from abortion-rights organizations.
One letter to senators was signed by 22 different groups, including the Wyoming chapters of the National Organization for Women and NARAL.
He received a hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee, but the chairman, Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., never scheduled a vote.
"I think if I had not sponsored pro-life legislation nearly 20 years ago, my nomination would have been uncontroversial. I think it's about that simple," Honaker said.
"I'm assuming that after watching the process for nearly two years, I have no reason to believe they will consider any more judicial nominations until the next administration," he added.
Honaker's statements Thursday were his first to the media since his nomination to replace retiring U.S. District Judge Clarence Brimmer of Cheyenne. As a judicial nominee, Honaker said he was not allowed to make public statements while the nomination was pending.
He said he is now free to speak out, and he submitted a guest column to the Casper Star-Tribune detailing his experience with the federal judicial nomination process.
Honaker said former Gov. Mike Sullivan, a Democrat, and former U.S. Sen. Alan Simpson, a Republican, both contacted Leahy on his behalf.
Wyoming's two U.S. senators, Mike Enzi and John Barrasso, also worked to get his nomination moving.
Enzi said Thursday through his press secretary, Elly Pickett, that he believes Honaker would be a fantastic district judge.
"He s intelligent, fair, ethical and hard-working, everything we want in a judge," Enzi said.
Honaker said criticisms of his legislative record perhaps were valid if he were seeking a federal legislative position, but not in the role a judge would play.
There is a difference between policy making and judging, he said, adding that the judge's role is to apply the law.
Priscilla Moree, state coordinator for the National Organization for Women, and Sharon Breitweiser, director of NARAL Wyoming, said Thursday they believe Honaker was treated fairly.
"His record is what it is," Moree said.
She was referring to "Human Life Protection Act" bills Honaker sponsored as a Democrat in the Wyoming House in 1991 and 1992.
Neither passed, nor did a proposed constitutional amendment with similar language to ban abortions except in limited cases.
Honaker pointed out the bill was similar to those introduced in many states at that time and had 20 co-sponsors, Republicans and Democrats, men and women.
Honaker later switched to the Republican Party.
Breitweiser said the opposition groups viewed the Wyoming anti-abortion proposals as an attempt to overturn the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Roe vs. Wade.
Honaker, she said, received a hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee and had an opportunity to answer questions.
Thousands of people all over the nation and in Wyoming, she said, wrote to the senators saying they did not want another "anti-choice" candidate to be a judge.
"It's a lifetime appointment," Breitweiser said.
President George W. Bush nominated Honaker to serve as one of three U.S. district judges for the District of Wyoming on March 19, 2007.
Honaker said he had no idea before now what federal nominees go through -- being in limbo and waiting. "It's hard to plan your life," he said.
On the positive side, he said he had lots of support from Wyoming lawyers and judges.
"I've gone through every emotion," Honaker said. "My roots are in Wyoming. I was born and raised here and practiced law for 32 years here.
"I don't want my reputation or character to be damaged because I volunteered for public service, he added.
Contact Joan Barron at joan.barron@trib.com or by phone at 307-632-1244.
Print this story
E-mail this story
Rate this story
Reader Comments
Comments to this story.
A. Pepple wrote on Nov 14, 2008 9:45 AM:
Jennie Mai Bonham wrote on Nov 14, 2008 4:37 PM:
L.Henry wrote on Nov 15, 2008 3:43 PM:
Hoser wrote on Nov 18, 2008 2:40 PM:
The judicial selection and confirmation process- no matter what side you're on is an embarassment. "
BBoop54 wrote on Nov 24, 2008 2:57 PM:
afmalice wrote on Nov 26, 2008 12:51 PM:
conservatism_is_a_failure wrote on Nov 26, 2008 6:10 PM:
From dKosopedia
If you do not have skin cancer, and have ever stood outside without having a peeling sunburn within moments, thank the ozone layer, thank the ban on CFCs, and thank a liberal.
If you ever wore something, talked, or walked in a way that might have looked "gay" to some insecure, sexually confused moron and were not beaten or murdered for it, it thank a liberal.
If you have not died in a heat wave, drought, hurricane, flood, wildfire, or other climate change disaster, and like the idea of your children and grandchildren not living in desert wastelands, thank a liberal.
If you have ever breathed clean air or drank clean water, thank a liberal.
If no woman you know has died or been maimed in a back-alley Abortion, thank a liberal.
If you have never been lynched, or had your children firebombed in a church, thank a liberal.
If you are glad we don't live in a right-wing dictatorship along the lines of what conservatives overtly and covertly created in Iran, Guatamala, Nicaragua, the Dominican Republic, the Congo, Chile, Brazil, El Salvador, the Phillipines, Indonesia and many others, thank a liberal.
If you have ever used Medicare, thank a liberal.
If you have ever sat on a public seat, drank from a drinking fountain, stood on a bus, or done anything in public without worrying about being beaten up for being in the wrong section for your skin color, thank a liberal.
If you've ever driven on an interstate highway, thank a liberal.
If your family benefited from the GI Bill of Rights, FHA Mortgages, and so forth, thank a liberal.
If you have ever bought anything from Europe, and are glad the Marshall plan kept it from remained a bombed-out shell or falling to communism or neo-fascism, thank a liberal.
If you are glad that the Nazis don't control half the world (conservatives opposed joining World War 2 until it was forced on them) thank a liberal.
If you have ever eaten food (agricultural subsidies), flicked on a light switch (rural electrification) or benefited from the Tennessee Valley Authority, thank a liberal.
If you ever drank a beer or a glass of wine without being thrown in jail, thank a liberal.
If you are not a land-owning white male, but have voted, thank a liberal.
If you have not died from tainted meat, been prescribed something useless or poisonous by a quack doctor, have not given your children cough syrup which turned out to have heroin as its secret ingredient, thank a liberal.
If your workplace is safe and you are paid a living wage, including overtime; if you enjoy a 40-hour week and you are allowed to join a union to protect your rights without being lynched, thank a liberal.
If you've ever seen a national park, and it hadn't been strip mined and clearcut into a desert wasteland, thank a liberal.
If your children go to school instead of working in coal mines, thank a liberal.
If you're a Native American and have not been killed or died in a concentration camp, or if you live near Native Americans and are not at war with them, thank a liberal.
If you have an industrial or high-tech job - or really, any job other than those available in a slave-powered cash crop economy (ie, a third world economy) thank a liberal.
If you're not a slave or "indentured servant" (white slave), don't think protection of slavery belongs in the constitution, if you've never been chained to a boat where half the passengers die, been whipped, had your family split up, been forced to "breed" with another slave you've never met, been raped by your boss, or killed for not being profitable, thank a liberal.
If you oppose political parties starting massive wars to destroy America, just because they lost the election, and killing hundreds of thousands of Americans in process - if you just don't have that much fanatical hatred of Lincoln's policy of to restricting slavery to states where it already existed, thank a liberal.
If you're part-Irish, Catholic, Jewish, or for that matter anything not Anglo-Saxon Protestant, and are allowed to live in America, and are not harassed and attacked for failing to be born Anglo-Saxon Protestant, or if you've ever bought or used anything built by a non-ASP American, thank a liberal.
If you kind of like freedom of speech, and don't want the state government to be able to censor you - (you think the 14th amendment is a good idea) - thank a liberal.
If you have ever bought or sold anything transported by the transcontinental railroad, or eaten food from a farm created by the railroad, thank a liberal.
If you think the US constitution is pretty cool, and have ever traveled too or done business with a country whose democracy was inspired by the American revolution, thank a liberal.
If you have not been drafted and used as cannon-fodder in some war caused by some petty insult between nobles, clan leaders, or other various overfed dictators, or suffered rape or looting in one of those countless wars, thank a liberal.
If you have not been tortured to death in a religious inquisition, thank a liberal.
If you don't have to walk though ankle-deep sewage in the streets (because sewers are big gummint), thank a liberal.
If you have ever done anything that is a religious or superstitious taboo (ie, done anything at all) without being stoned to death or cast out as a heretic, thank a liberal.
If you have never been raped, and then had the rapist escape punishment on the grounds that he marry you, thank a liberal.
If you are not a slave toiling to build a pyramid for some lazy dictator who's so spoiled he thinks he's god, and won't even see it until he's dead, thank a liberal.
If you have not been killed as a human sacrifice in the name of some god, thank a liberal.
In short, if you've ever enjoyed anything of the post-stone-age world, thank a liberal.
...And if not, become a conservative.
"Liberal policies made America the freest, wealthiest, most successful and most powerful nation in human history. Conservatism in power always threatens to undo that national progress, and is almost always frustrated by the innate decency and democratic instincts of the American people..." - Joe Conason "
SteveMD2 wrote on Nov 29, 2008 9:08 PM:
That says it all. They make the Catholic church look decent by comparison. Our own Christian Taliban, dedicated to turning America into a saudi arabia christian version theocracy, with a state religion, and God help you if you don't bend over for their superstitions, fantasies, and cultism, and who they hate, eg gays now, jewss, blacks, etc in the past..
We don't need these kind of people in America. I make my standing offer - I will buy them a plane ticket to saudi Arabia, as long as they bring a box of bibles, and agree to sell them in the public square.
And when the Mutwa (religious police) catch up with them, well those people don't fool around. And the christian taliban will have met their match.
. Incidentally they are the same people who use the bible to justify slavery, near slavery of women, segregation, the ban on inter-racial marriages, etc, not overthrown until 1968. etc etc. "
John Birbari wrote on Dec 1, 2008 3:24 PM:
This faith is one he shares with many of our Founding Fathers. The others, though not Christian, were not antagonistic towards Christianity. Quite the contrary, they recognized the value and benefits any society derives from its Christian people. How many hospitals, orphanages and other charitable organizations have atheists built, any?
Richard Honaker has much more in common with the Founders of this great country than the liberal bloggers who think they know our history but only reveal their ignorance. The best argument of small minds is ridicule. "
Jennie B wrote on Dec 2, 2008 8:49 AM:
The fairest judge is a seasoned trial lawyer. They know the law and have been in the courtroom watching its application. Richard Honaker is a seasoned trial lawyer with the highest integrity.
Liberals have long been critical of a bill Mr. Honaker CO-Sponsored in the Wyoming House in the early nineties that did not make it out of committee. The people who elected him had requested that this legislation be put forth. Mr. Honaker was elected as a Democrat in the primarily Democratic district of Rock Springs. Is not a legislator supposed to act for his constituents who elect him? Or are they only supposed to act for the special interest groups who contribute heavily to their campaign? "
Submit a Comment