Reagan Nominates Siegan for U.S. Circuit Court Seat

University of San Diego law professor Bernard Siegan, known for his strong defense of economic freedom and libertarian views on property rights, was nominated Friday by President Reagan for a seat on the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.

The 62-year-old constitutional scholar, if confirmed, would serve on the West’s federal appeals bench, which has jurisdiction over appellate matters in California, eight other states, Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands. He would succeed Warren Ferguson, who recently became a senior judge on the 9th Circuit.

Liberal critics of Reagan have predicted that Siegan’s long-expected nomination will be controversial, in part because of Siegan’s strongly held opinions that economic freedoms deserve the same protections as the freedoms of speech, religion and the press.

Reached at his home in La Jolla late Friday, Siegan said he had not officially been informed of his nomination, but it did not come as a surprise.

“I can just say that whatever my views are, a Circuit Court judge is supposed to carry out the policies declared by the Supreme Court,” he said. “My primary obligation is to do what the Supreme Court thinks about economic liberties, not what Bernard Siegan thinks.”

Siegan added:”This is a great honor for someone who’s been in the law. This is something that I guess a lot of lawyers want to do--the capping of a career.”

A former Chicago land-use lawyer who has taught at USD since 1973, Siegan has described himself as a strict constructionist on constitutional issues.

He is the son of Russian-Polish immigrants, grew up on the West Side of Chicago and spoke only Yiddish until he was five. He later attended junior college in Chicago, served in the Army and studied law at the University of Chicago.

It was there that he came under the influence of the university’s renowned free-market economists. In an interview with The Times last year, Siegan said he came to believe that looser interpretation of the Constitution was stripping citizens of their property rights and economic freedoms by permitting excessive zoning and regulation.