Yesterday in this space I noted a couple reasons that Democrats had gone so far out of their way to filibuster some of President Bush's nominations - payback and a pro-abortion litmus test - which is why the Senate conducted a "Justice for Judges Marathon" that will wrap up this morning.
Why have the liberals in the Senate decided to block these nominations? They want to send a message to the White House - and to future judicial nominees.
Of course, the actions of the Democrats today toward President Bush's judicial nominees is no surprise to those who kept an eye on the Left last Congress when they were in the majority.
Look back with me briefly to the 107th Congress.
Here's what the New York Times noted on April 7, 2002, after the Democrat-led Judiciary Committee killed the nomination of Charles Pickering to the 5th Circuit Court:
- "Some Democrats were blunt about what they hoped to accomplish [in confrontations over the President's nominees]. Senator Charles E. Schumer of New York said that in opposing the Pickering nomination they were sending a message to the White House that Mr. Bush should stop trying to stack the courts with conservatives."
On the day the Judiciary Committee, still under the control of the Democrats, killed Priscilla Owen's nomination to the 5th Circuit Court, Senator Schumer said:
- "We will not be bamboozled. . . . I'd urge Karl Rove, Judge Gonzales, and Attorney General Ashcroft to take heed from today's votes." (Owen nomination vote hearing, September 5, 2002)
Following the narrow confirmation victory of John Ashcroft in February of 2001, Democrats trumpeted that vote as a "shot across the bow" to the President that they will defeat conservatives to the Supreme Court via filibuster.
Today this "shot" also includes nominees to the lower courts such as Pickering, Owen, Carolyn Kuhl, Janice Rogers Brown, and Miguel Estrada.
Back then their excuse was and is, as Senator Feinstein indicated, that President Bush did not have a mandate for "skewing the courts" with conservatives because of his narrow victory in 2000.
Senator Schumer also noted that America had not elected a 60-seat majority of Senators who would have voted for Owen. He failed to mention that America also did not elect a Democrat Senate majority in 2000 (instead it existed because Sen. Jim Jeffords (I.-Vt.) bolted from the GOP) and that President Clinton only received 43 percent of the vote when elected but still had both of his Supreme Court nominees confirmed with ease.
If the goal of Democrats back then was to send a message, they succeeded. The question is whether the message they actually sent is the one intended:
- "Rejecting a qualified nominee because of this sort of ideological disagreement sends a chilling message to judges everywhere who might wish for future appointments: Take no risks in writing opinions and keep one eye always on the Judiciary Committee's sensibilities. It also sends a message to the public that the confirmation process is not a principled exercise but an expression of political power. Both messages are corrosive to the ideals that must animate a first-rate judicial branch." (The Washington Post, Editorial, September 13, 2002)
The message they are sending today is no different.
(This First Look is adapted from a paper I prepared for the Republican Polity Committee.)
