Ahnold Appoints Moderate to Replace Brown in State Supreme Court

First he appoints a Democrat as Chief of Staff and now this. I think I hear some California wingnuts' heads exploding:

SACRAMENTO -- Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger named Carol A. Corrigan to the CaliforniaSupreme Court this morning, replacing an ideological conservative with a judicial moderate.

Corrigan is a former prosecutor, former Democrat and self-described centrist who will replace the notable conservative Justice Janice Rogers Brown, who left last summer to take up a presidential appointment to a federal appeals court in Washington, D.C.

Note that Corrigan names Justice Sandra Day O'Connor as the Supreme Court Justice she admires the most; other judges say she's probably closest in legal philosophy to Chief Justice Ronald M. George who is generally considered conservative on law and order issues but moderate on social issues.

Here is a professional profile of Judge Corrigan from the California Courts web site.

Another profile from Law.com, where Corrigan, now a registered Republican, is described as "quick witted" and "one of the brainiest justices on the [California] court of appeal".

Last month's humiliating defeat of his ballot measures almost sunk Ahnold for good and he knows it. So now he's trying to make nice with these controversial appointments to ostensibly signal a return to his supposed reformist, moderate self.

Hopefully, Californians wouldn't fall for it in 2006. Ahnold, like his role model George Bush, is only too willing to throw his weight around and make a Republican-style power grab at the expense of his constituents. Last month's elections confirmed that by exposing him for the true party man that he is.

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