Elected members of our legislative and executive branches of government sometimes leave office at the low point of their careers as a direct result of the process of public accountability. Federal judges hold their posiitons with a lifetime tenure and news of their retirement usually merits little comment. Not so with 4th Circuit Court of Appeals Judge J. Michael Luttig who announced this week he will step down at age 51.
A year ago, Judge Luttig was on President Bush's short list for nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court. Passed over twice in the past year for that appointment and, then, almost exactly two months ago, the author of an embarrassing opinion in Salt Institute v. Leavitt , the trajectory of Judge Luttig's starred career turned down and is now history. Celebrated for strong defense of limited government (the Wall Street Journal editorialized that "his opinions have been prominent in setting the limits of executive and judicial power...."), Judge Luttig's Salt Institute opinion swung 180-degrees from that record and reversed clear Congressional intent that federal agencies be required to ensure that data used in their policy pronouncements meet high quality standards, be fully disclosed and succeptible of being reproduced by outside experts. Judge Luttig's opinion, rather, declared that agencies could make their own decisions about whether they'd met their obligations under the Data Quality Act. He put the fox in charge of the henhouse.
No doubt, Judge Luttig rendered valuable service through most of his 15 years on the appelate bench. It's too bad one of his final decisions was probably his worst ever.
