| http://www.pfaw.org/issues/right/rwwo/rwwo.020128.shtml
January 28, 2002 Confirmation Disinformation: The Right-Wing Campaign to Control the Federal Judiciary As Congress returns from its winter recess, right-wing groups are ratcheting up their rhetoric and attacks on Senate Democrats over the issue of judicial nominations. Most of their ire has been targeted at Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.), whom they wrongly accuse of stalling President Bush's judicial nominees. These attacks began shortly after Sen. Jim Jeffords (I-VT) defected from the Republican Party in May, giving Democrats control of the Senate. Apparently operating under the belief that President Bush is entitled to immediately receive confirmation of every judicial nominee he puts forth, Republicans and their allies have sought to rush nominees through the confirmation process. Such attacks are nothing new, as they have long played an important role in the efforts of right-wing groups to pack the federal court system with ultra-conservative judges. The vehemence of the attacks increased dramatically as Congress approached its winter recess, with the ultra-conservative Human Events labeling Leahy "Osama's Enabler in Congress" and one of its columnists, Ann Coulter, calling him a "sputtering fool," but the underlying aim continues to be total control of the federal judiciary. While the issue of judicial confirmations has long been a contentious one, the sudden shift on the part of Republicans and their allies is flagrantly hypocritical. During the 6 years the Republicans controlled the Senate under President Clinton, they stalled over 45% of Clinton's nominations to the courts of appeals. Yet even this unprecedented move was not enough to please the likes of the Free Congress Foundation and the Eagle Forum, who regularly demanded that the Senate confirm "no more Clinton judges!" In stark contrast, ever since President Bush took office, such groups have done an about-face and the issue of judicial confirmations has become their top priority. Thus, we now find the President's supporters using the issue of judicial nominations to accuse Leahy and other Senate Democrats of everything from denying President Bush the fruits of his electoral victory to hindering the war on terrorism. As the Senate returns to business, you can bet that the push for judicial confirmations will reach fever pitch. The Republican Campaign Ever since Sen. Leahy took over as chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee in July 2001, right-wing groups have consistently accused him and other Senate Democrats of deliberately stalling the confirmation process, a charge that Leahy has vigorously refuted. Nonetheless, they have escalated their rhetoric in the months following the September 11 attacks. Hoping to force Senate Democrats to quickly move President Bush's nominees, Republicans ended the bipartisan spirit that had characterized the Senate's work in the weeks following the September 11 attacks by attempting to filibuster a $15 billion foreign aid bill. By threatening to refuse to allow spending bills to be considered, Senate Republicans hoped they could force Leahy and the Democrats to buckle and grant confirmation to President Bush's judicial nominees with little or no scrutiny. When Republicans abandoned the filibuster strategy after Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D-SD) told the White House he would not give in on the issue, right-wing groups criticized the GOP for backing down, with the Family Research Council claiming that they were not standing up to the "unprecedented action on behalf of Sen. Leahy to ratchet up the level of partisanship on judges." In a shameful attempt to use the September 11 attacks to push their own agenda, Republican operatives attempted to tie the quick confirmation of judicial nominees to the success of the "war on terrorism." After a Senate Republican Conference staff member issued a memo outlining plans for an event designed to convince the public the two issues were connected, many right-wing groups quickly began to parrot the line. The Center for Reclaiming America claimed that "the holdup of these nominees threatens the war on terrorism, because these judicial vacancies need to be filled as soon as possible to act on law-enforcement requests." The Free Congress Foundation leveled a similar complaint, as did Concerned Women for America, who complained that "Senate Democrats are deliberately limiting the ability of federal courts to bring criminals to justice." Even Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) got in on the act, claiming that "anyone who is interested in helping the president in the war on terrorism should support the president's judicial nominees." Despite these claims, critics have noted that far-right organizations and senators who have leveled such charges have offered absolutely no evidence that the pace of confirmations has any negative impact on law enforcement and the war on terrorism. Even the conservative magazine Insight admits that this claim is false, noting that "experts say vacancy levels won't affect the Justice Department's ability to prosecute the war on terrorism." Even as this line of attack failed, right-wing groups resorted to other deceptive tactics in hopes of winning their rhetorical war, mainly by accusing Leahy of "racial profiling" regarding the nomination of Miguel Estrada to serve on the D.C. Court of Appeals. Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ) said, "Liberal Democrats don't want an Hispanic-American appointed to this significant court…. They are literally racially profiling this nomination." The Traditional Values Coalition joined in the chorus, calling on Sen. Leahy "to stop playing racial politics with this nomination" and Concerned Women for America claimed that Senate Democrats needed to "put aside their prejudices ... and appoint Miguel Estrada." Critics contend that these charges are hypocritical and false. Progressive groups believe that a careful review of Estrada's record is particularly important, especially in light of concerns raised by the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund concerning what they cite as his "ultraconservative" views. Furthermore, Estrada has been the target of public criticism by a former superior in the solicitor general's office, who has suggested that Estrada sometimes misrepresented and misconstrued precedent to suit his own beliefs. In contrast to Estrada's nomination, which has been pending for less than seven months during which the Democrats have controlled the Senate, GOP senators and right-wing groups delayed some of President Clinton's Hispanic nominees, literally, for years. For example, Sen. Kyl and other Republicans delayed a vote on Judge Richard Paez of California for over four years. Attacking on a slightly different front, Ken Connor, president of Family Research Council said, "President Bush is nominating conservative judges who will exercise judicial restraint, yet the bitterly partisan Sens. Daschle and Leahy are determined to deny the president the fruits of his election. Sen. Leahy is using the war on terrorism as cover for stonewalling President Bush's nominees to the federal courts." For its part, the Washington Times ran an editorial accusing Leahy of "jealously guarding the political logjam that is keeping nearly all of President Bush's nominations from the federal bench," and accused him of "following a strategy to prevent any appeals court nominee committed to the legal doctrine of judicial restraint from even having a hearing, let alone a floor vote." The apparent result of this "strategy" is that judicial nominees are now little more than "judicial detainees" who are subject to a "punishing state of incarceration" and "neglect and stagnation." Conclusion Despite accusations by the likes of the Free Congress Foundation's Tom Jipping that the Senate's confirmation record thus far has been "pathetic," progressive groups have pointed out that more nominees (28) were confirmed during the first year of George W. Bush's administration than were confirmed during the first years of either of the two previous administrations (27 for President Bill Clinton, 15 for President George H.W. Bush). The intensity with which right-wing groups are pushing the issue of judicial nominations is not surprising when one understands that they consider, as a "60 Second Activist" newsletter pointed out, the battle over judicial nominees to be "a key battle for America's future.... It's a fight for what kind of judges will sit on the federal courts in America. And, ultimately, it's a fight about the Supreme Court." Other such groups share similar motivations, with the Eagle Forum claiming that control of the federal judiciary is a "battle for [the] mind and soul" of America and that this "war" is one they cannot afford to lose. These statements are telling and provide valuable insight into the reasoning behind the attacks launched by right-wing groups and their Republican allies. Many such groups are pushing for quick confirmation of President Bush's judicial nominees because they know that the fate of much of their political agenda lies in the hands of the federal court system. In fact, that motivation was all but admitted by Jay Sekulow of the American Center for Law and Justice when he claimed that "it's very important that these [President Bush's] federal judges get appointed," because many of the most controversial issues will eventually wind up being decided in the courts, "and we want judges that are sympathetic to our view of the Constitution." |
