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    Flap’s Links and Comments for April 25th on 17:30

    These are my links for April 25th from 17:30 to 17:32:

    • Mitch Daniels: I would have backed Haley Barbour – In a statement sure to stoke speculation about his presidential intentions, Mitch Daniels said Monday that he would have backed Haley Barbour had the Mississippi governor not opted out of a White House bid.

      “Haley Barbour is a great citizen; he’d have made a great president," Daniels, the Indiana governor, said in a statement. "I’d have been proud to try to help him had he chosen to run."

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      Daniels, who first became friends with Barbour when they served together as 30-somethings in the Reagan White House added: "The Barbours have been close and true friends to the Daniels family, and we will always be 100 percent supportive of any decision they believe is best for them.”

      Daniels has said in the past that he would likely not run if Barbour is in the race.

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      Now, will Haley Barbour reciprocate?

    • Motion to Vacate Judge Walker’s Anti-Prop 8 Judgment for Failure to Recuse – It is important to emphasize at the outset that we are not suggesting that a gay or lesbian judge could not sit on this case.  Rather, our submission is grounded in the fundamental principle, reiterated in the governing statute, that no judge “is permitted to try cases where he has an interest in the outcome.”  Surely, no one would suggest that Chief Judge Walker could issue an injunction directing a state official to issue a marriage license to him.  Yet on this record, it must be presumed that that is precisely what has occurred.  At a bare minimum, “[r]ecusal is required” because former Chief Judge Walker’s long-term committed relationship, his failure to disclose that relationship at the outset of the case, his failure to disclose whether he has any interest in marriage should his injunction be affirmed, and his actions over the course of this lawsuit give rise to “a genuine question concerning [his] impartiality.” 

      We deeply regret the necessity of this motion.  But as the Supreme Court emphasized earlier in this very case, “[b]y insisting that courts comply with the law, parties vindicate not only the rights they assert but also the law’s own insistence on neutrality and fidelity to principle.…  If courts are to require that others follow regular procedures, courts must do so as well.”  The “regular procedure” here requires adherence to the principles that a judge may not sit on a case when “his impartiality might reasonably be questioned,” 28 U.S.C. § 455(a), and certainly not when he has an “interest that could be substantially affected by the outcome of the proceeding,” 28 U.S.C. § 455(b)(4).  Proponents ask only that these principles be applied faithfully and neutrally here as in any other case.

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      The failure to disclose will doom this case