Dana Rohrabacher: “today, I rise to correct the record concerning a great economist and a friend, the late Bernard Siegan, a distinguished…”

“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.”