The Supreme Court is in the news: On May 26th President Obama nominated Sonia Sotomayor, a federal appellate court judge (U. S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit), to replace retiring Justice David Souter.
Curious about how this process works? After all, Supreme Court justices are appointed for life, not just for a President’s term. Here are places for more info:
- Search CQ Electronic Library for “supreme court” and nomination, and the results list will show items such as “History of appointments: The Senate’s role” (from Guide to Congress, 6th ed.). To see the newest results first, click the down arrow under “Date” and find items such as the CQ Weekly article “Supreme Court Nominees Are Presented, Not Just Announced”.
- Search the Library Catalog for keywords (judges or “supreme court”) and selection to find books such as Pursuit of justices: Presidential politics and the selection of Supreme Court nominees (3rd-Floor Main Collection, KF8742 .Y35 1999) and Advice and consent: The politics of judicial appointments (3rd-Floor Main Collection, KF8776 .E67 2005). This catalog search also finds government publications, such as Congressional confirmation hearings of previous nominees to the Court: Confirmation hearing on the nomination of Samuel A. Alito, Jr. (2nd-floor Federal Documents, Y 4.J 89/2:S.HRG.109-277).
- A more recent title, available to UWW students and faculty from other UW libraries by using the free Universal Borrowing service, is The next Justice: Repairing the Supreme Court appointments process (2007).
- Search Oxford Reference Online to find information about the Court, the nomination process, and a listing of “Nominations and Succession of the Justices” from sources such as The Oxford Companion to the Supreme Court of the United States.
You can read Sotomayor’s decisions also, using the LexisNexis Academic database: Select the Legal portion of the database, then on the left select “Federal & State Cases” and then search for her as a judge:
The University Library is a federal depository with many federal, state, local, and international documents on a variety of current and relevant issues available to you in print, microfiche, CD-ROM, and electronically. Come check out your government at the University Library!
President Obama scheduled a town hall meeting with all of us Thursday morning, March 26th, at 10:30 a.m. People were directed to the White House web site to review questions.
If you missed it, you can read the transcript or view the video:
The University Library is a federal depository with many federal, state, local, and international documents on a variety of current and relevant issues available to you in print, microfiche, CD-ROM, and electronically. Come check out your government at the University Library!
Did you watch Pres. Obama’s first Address to Congress Tues. night (Feb. 24)? I got hooked and had to watch until the end. He mentioned we could track government spending at http://www.recovery.gov/ Check it out and let us know what interesting stats you find.
Also, he said his goals would be based on three topics, Education, Health Care and one other? What was it?
Do you agree with me that he seems to act truely as a “father” to our country, someone who cares about doing things correctly and fair? What is your impression of his presidency so far?
The 2009 Economic Report of the President has been submitted to Congress and may be read in its entirety online.
This annual report, written by the Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors, overviews the nation’s economic progress and provides extensive data appendices. Reports back to 1995 are available online at the GPO Access link given above. Older reports are available in print in the Library’s Federal Documents collection or online (back to 1947) at the Federal Reserve Archival System for Economic Research (FRASER).
The Economic Report of the President includes:
- Current and foreseeable trends and annual numerical goals concerning topics such as employment, production, real income, and Federal budget outlays;
- Employment objectives for significant groups of the labor force;
- Annual numeric goals;
- A program for carrying out objectives.
- The annual report of the Council of Economic Advisers, describing its activities during the previous calendar year.
The table of contents shows that the text has information that affects us all:
Chapter 1: The year in Review and the Years Ahead
Chapter 2: Housing and Financial Markets
Chapter 3: Energy and the Environment
Chapter 4: The Benefits of Open Trade and Investment Policies
Chapter 5: Tax Policy
Chapter 6: The Long-Run Challenges of Entitlement Spending
Chapter 7: Balancing Private and Public Roles in Health Care
Chapter 8: Education and Labor
Chapter 9: Economic Regulation
The University Library is a federal depository with many federal, state, local, and international documents on a variety of current and relevant issues available to you in print, microfiche, CD-ROM, and electronically. Come check out your government at the University Library!
Today, January 20th 2009, Barack Obama was sworn in as our 44th President. If you missed the swearing in, you can see it on YouTube: 
You can read the text of his inauguration speech online also.
His team is not wasting time. Check out the White House web site, for example. You can read the blog and sign up for emailed updates about major decisions. Weekly videos are planned (for Saturday mornings). Under “About the White House” you can select “Presidents” and get to the official brief biography of President Obama.
The University Library has a couple of books by Obama if you’d like to get to know him a bit better: The audacity of hope: thoughts on reclaiming the American dream (2nd-floor Browsing Books E901.1.O23 A3 2006) and Dreams from my father: a story of race and inheritance (2nd-floor Browsing Books E185.97.O23 A3 2004).
Addendum:
You can read the text of Elizabeth Alexander’s reading at the Inauguration, or see the video at YouTube:
