KAY DALY
Kay Daly, recipient of this year's Ronald Reagan Award at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), is a homemaker and political communications professional-in that order. "I'm just a housewife," she said in a recent interview. In addition to that, she is vice president of the Washington office of the Signature Agency and the spokeswoman for the Coalition for a Fair Judiciary (CFJ), which supports President Bush's conservative judicial nominees. She performs all these functions while working out of her home.
CFJ, a 501(c)4, "is made up of 70 or more conservative organizations," she said. "It's made up of folks who may not agree with each other but agree on judges. It came out of the Ashcroft fight."
Daly was roped in to help push John Ashcroft's nomination as attorney general. "I was asked to go to a press conference because 'you look like a mom,'" said Daly. "I was expecting my first child. They told me the feminists were going to come out against Ashcroft. . . . We had so much fun so we said, 'Let's do judges.'"
Finished with her stint as communications director of Americans for Ashcroft, Daly-expecting again-now is the one-woman coordinating office of CFJ. "The groups are really the Coalition for a Fair Judiciary," she said. Her work consists of " a lot of prayer," she said.
"I work to the coalition memberships, to their strength. We use e-mail lists to generate support for the nominees when groups have good lists, we use radio broadcasts by the groups that have them, op-eds. I try to make sure their method of communication is activated. We go to hearings, press conferences. We try to make the train go forward. It's a whole new ballgame now. The battle has shifted from the [Judiciary] committee to the floor."
At CPAC's gala Ronald Reagan Banquet January 31, American Conservative Union Chairman David Keene introduced Daly as the winner of this year's Ronald Reagan Award, which each year is given to a conservative activist who is not a celebrity. Anti-ERA campaigner "Phyllis Schlafly defeated the entire political establishment of the day along with Hollywood muckety-mucks and a well-financed army of feminists," said Keene. Daly gave credit to Schlafly because the latter "paved the way." Daly will be there "when the battle for the soul of the Supreme Court begins," said Keene. "Because I tell you, this woman will not give up until this battle is won."
Members of CFJ include the American Conservative Union, the Family Research Council, Concerned Women for America, the Republican Jewish Coalition, the Black America's Political Action Committee, the Hispanic Business Roundtable, Citizens for a Sound Economy, the NRA, and Eagle Forum.
"They basically sit around and think of ways to shred a judicial nominee's career," said Daly of the leftist opponents to Bush's nominees. "More than anything else, the judicial nomination process has brought the left together." Daly is convinced that D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals nominee Miguel Estrada, suffering a filibuster from Senate Democrats as of this writing, is a strict constructionist "because in the cases that he dealt with, particularly in the solicitor general's office, he applied the law as he found it rather than his ideology."
Daly said that the Senate Republican leadership should not be afraid of filibusters. "We make sure the Senate leadership hears from us," she said. "And we say, 'A filibuster is great. Bring it on.'"
Despite Estrada's distinguished career, some of his liberal critics-in the absence of any real evidence against him-have noted that he lacks judicial experience. "Two judges on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals weren't judges before and were younger than he was," she said.
In her work, said Daly, "the Pledge of Allegiance case was very helpful. The mom in Ohio doesn't know about federal courts, but she knows that when her son can't say the pledge, that there is something wrong with the courts."
Daly said that a Supreme Court battle looms on the horizon. Asked about the possibility that controversial White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales might be named to the high court, Daly said, "That's a tough one. That might split the coalition right smack down the middle."
Both during her acceptance speech and in her interview, Daly went out of her way to praise her husband, Jack. "I couldn't do this without him. I can't understand feminists who view males as unnecessary. I don't have to warehouse my children and find meaning in my job. . . . Daddy is needed. Daddy is almost always the ultimate disciplinarian. Daddy is the final word in the household." Told that implies a lack of belief in equality, Daly replied, "I will never descend to the level of equality. I like the deal I have."
CFJ may be reached at P.O. Box 33973, Washington, D.C. 20013 (e-mail: [email protected]; website: www.fairjudiciary.com
