Posted on 01/26/2004 7:18:46 AM PST by WKB
Judge Charles Pickering's exhausting journey to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals is a cause celebre for the Mississippi Republican Party.
People shouldn't expect the talk about it to die down just because President Bush made an end-run around congressional Democrats and installed Pickering on the appeals bench Jan. 16.
If anything, the GOP is now ideally situated to gain from the Pickering predicament.
Republicans got what they wanted, because the 66-year-old judge - a former state senator, former head of the Mississippi Baptist Convention and former U.S. District Court judge - is serving on the court that handles appeals from Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas. He can remain on the 5th Circuit bench until the next Congress takes office in January 2005.
But, Pickering remains a political martyr because he lacks Senate confirmation. Republicans can point to him repeatedly during this federal election year as a conservative they think was wronged by the Democrats.
Bush and the judge's son - U.S. Rep. Chip Pickering, R-Miss. - are both up for re-election, and the judge's treatment is certain to be a topic of GOP stump speeches across the state.
The president first nominated Charles Pickering for the appeals court in 2001, and U.S. Senate Democrats have blocked a vote on the nomination. In October, Democrats filibustered to prevent a confirmation vote, and Republicans were unable to muster the 60 votes needed to stop the talkathon.
Critics said Pickering has a questionable record on race and has been insensitive to voting rights and abortion rights.
Supporters say Pickering has been involved in racial reconciliation. They also say he's being singled out because of his religious beliefs.
After Bush installed Pickering on the appeals bench, U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., called the recess appointment "a finger in the eye to all those seeking fairness and bipartisanship in the judicial nominations process."
Sen. Trent Lott, R-Miss., who had criticized recess appointments in the past, said "in this exceptional case, Judge Pickering's record deems this recess appointment fully appropriate."
"The unwavering determination that Judge Pickering has displayed in the face of these unfair and now discredited attacks shows all the more what an outstanding individual he is," Lott said.
Lott, the Pickerings, President Bush and the family of Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour are all politically intertwined.
Chip Pickering once worked in Lott's Senate office. Lott has been one of Charles Pickering's most vocal supporters.
Bush, of course, nominated Charles Pickering to the appeals court.
Barbour, who has known Charles Pickering since 1968, was Republican National Committee chairman in the mid-1990s and served on a select group of advisers for Bush in 1999 when the then-governor of Texas was preparing to run for president in 2000.
One of Barbour's nephews, Henry Barbour, worked for Chip Pickering during a hard-fought round of Mississippi redistricting in 2001 and 2002, when the state lost one of its five congressional seats.
Henry Barbour also worked on Chip Pickering's re-election campaign in 2002, when Chip Pickering and Democratic U.S. Rep. Ronnie Shows were forced into a redrawn district. Chip Pickering won
In Mississippi, they know Charles Pickering is a good man and a great judge. The fact that he is religious and a conservative jurist emphatically do not place him outside of the mainstream. It is the Democratic party which is outside the mainstream, and I hope they pay a dear price for opposing his nomination, both locally and nationally.
She spent the last one third of the article making them sound as though they are committing incest.
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