[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 153 (2007), Part 16]
[House]
[Pages 22414-22415]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




               RECLAIMING DR. BERNARD SIEGAN'S REPUTATION

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from California (Mr. Rohrabacher) is recognized for 5 
minutes.
  Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, today, I rise to correct the record 
concerning a great economist and a friend, the late Bernard Siegan, a 
distinguished professor of law at the University of San Diego. It will 
be remembered that in 1988 Dr. Siegan was nominated by President Ronald 
Reagan to the U.S. Court of Appeals. He promptly came under attack, one 
of the worst from Professor Lawrence Tribe of Harvard University.
  Tribe wrote in a public letter on May 28, 1987, to Senator Biden 
attacking the academic views of Dr. Siegan as being outside the 
mainstream of American jurisprudence.
  In a widely quoted section of his letter, Professor Tribe assailed 
Dr. Siegan's assertion that the Brown v. Board of Education ruling was 
``a component of the right to travel, a right long secured by the 
Federal courts.''
  At this time Professor Tribe claimed that this legal view was 
``tortured'' and part of ``Mr. Siegan's radical revisionism . . . so 
bizarre and strained . . . as to bring into question both Mr. Siegan's 
competence as a constitutional lawyer and his sincerity as a scholar.'' 
This type of assault was typical of the attacks that preceded the 
defeat of Dr. Siegan's nomination.
  That was 1987, and much has changed since then.
  Dr. Bernard Siegan died in March 2006. His many books, speeches and 
articles made him one of the most prolific and respected legal and 
constitutional scholars on the political right.
  Recently, in sorting through the files of her last husband, Mrs. 
Shelley Siegan came upon a series of written exchanges between her 
husband and Professor Lawrence Tribe. Tribe wrote on September 6, 1991, 
``I have reconsidered my description of your analysis of Brown v. Board 
of Education. I agree with your general approach that Brown can be 
justified by arguing from the `liberty' component of the 14th 
amendment.''
  Tribe further wrote Dr. Siegan, ``although I do not reach the same 
conclusions you do, the issues you raise are important enough to be 
worthy of scholarly discussion.''
  Unfortunately for Dr. Siegan's reputation, Professor Tribe's 
reevaluation was never publicly documented. However, in a letter to 
Mrs. Siegan on September 21, 2006, he wrote, ``Please permit me to 
apologize to you here for the unnecessary and ad hominem character of 
what I wrote to Senator Biden in May 1987.
  ``I am sorry to have caused him, or you, any distress, and I am 
grateful for the opportunity your letter affords me to set the letter 
straight as best I could do at this late date.''
  All this tells us much about the ugly period of personal attack this 
country experienced during the judicial nominations of the 1980s.
  I hope this review of the above-cited letters makes it clear that 
Professor Bernard Siegan was a distinguished and respected scholar, a 
champion of personal liberty and private property. And contrary to the 
assertions made during his nomination hearings in 1987, Professor 
Bernard Siegan would have

[[Page 22415]]

been made an excellent addition to the 9th District Circuit Court of 
Appeals.
  And now the record is set straight.

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