Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), who sits on the Judiciary Committee and is close to Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), is blocking a nominee to the federal bench whom Graham’s friend opposes, Senate sources say.
Posted on 05/24/2006 9:17:14 AM PDT by new yorker 77
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), who sits on the Judiciary Committee and is close to Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), is blocking a nominee to the federal bench whom Graham’s friend opposes, Senate sources say.
Conservatives and the American Bar Association consider the nominee, William “Jim” Haynes, one of President Bush’s more qualified. But his nomination has languished in committee since the president tapped him for the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in September 2003.
Graham’s blocking of Haynes means the senators need not argue against the administration’s treatment of enemy fighters, which might prove less popular connected to a judicial nominee than their high-profile demand last year for legislation banning cruel and degrading treatment of suspected terrorists.
Haynes, who spent most of his legal career as a lawyer in the Defense Department, is controversial because of his role in helping to implement the administration’s policy on the handling of “enemy combatants,” suspects taken prisoner in the war on terrorism. Democrats and liberal groups oppose Haynes because of this.
Few of Graham’s Republican colleagues are aware that he has stalled Haynes’s nomination in committee. Were Graham to admit blocking the nominee, it could prompt a critical backlash from GOP senators and conservative groups that advocate on behalf of the president’s judicial nominees.
Graham yesterday denied placing a secret hold on Haynes, but he declined to say whether he supports Haynes’s nomination. Senate sources say, however, that Graham is the reason Haynes has remained bottled up in the Judiciary Committee.
“I’m going to take them one at a time,” Graham said, referring to the slow procession of judicial nominees through the chamber. The Senate is expected to vote today on ending debate on the nomination of White House Staff Secretary Brett Kavanaugh to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals.
Graham has had plenty of opportunity to mull Haynes’s nomination. Its two and a half years in the Senate make it one of the longest-stalled nominations. The Judiciary Committee held a hearing on Haynes in November 2003 and voted him to the floor in March 2004, but the 108th Congress adjourned without taking action, forcing the administration to renominate him in February last year and restart the confirmation process.
“Haynes is one of the better nominees that I’ve seen,” said former Judiciary Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch (R-Utah). “I can’t believe what the Democrats are doing to him. I sure hope no Republican is doing it.”
Most Senate Republicans are expected to support Haynes should his nomination reach the floor, with one notable exception: McCain.
“I’m in opposition,” McCain said. “I would not vote for his nomination at this time.”
Graham and McCain played a high-profile role last year opposing administration policy on the treatment of detained terror suspects. McCain authored and Graham supported amendments to the defense appropriations bill banning cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment of detainees in American custody. Graham also wrote compromise legislation that denied detainees broad access to federal courts but would allow them to appeal the verdicts of military tribunals to a federal appeals court.
But while Graham and McCain were supported by most of their GOP colleagues in the debate over torture, it is far from certain they would garner similar support for opposing a judicial nominee who worked on policy concerning the legal status of detainees. For one thing, while most GOP lawmakers might take a public stand against torture, they would be less likely to question the special legal status of captured terror suspects that denies them the rights of prisoners of war or of American criminal suspects. For another, GOP senators tend to vote for Bush’s judicial nominees.
Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), a Judiciary member and ardent defender of Bush’s judicial nominees, said he was not aware that Graham was holding up Haynes’s nomination but knew he had problems with Pentagon policy.
“I know he has challenged the department’s views on a number of detainee issues,” Sessions said. “He has been a critic.”
Democratic opposition is not enough to keep Haynes’s nomination from reaching the floor because Republicans control 10 seats on the panel, while the Democrats have only eight. But if one Republican were to vote with the Democratic bloc against the nominee, Haynes would not have enough support.
Graham is pivotal also because, like McCain, he is a member of the “Gang of 14,” a group a seven centrist Republicans and seven centrist Democrats who would provide the swing votes needed to support a filibuster of a nominee or a procedure that would quash a filibuster by changing Senate rules.
Conservative groups said Graham risks alienating conservative voters by stalling one of Bush’s appellate court nominees.
“That is intolerable,” said Manuel Miranda, a former aide to Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) and chairman of the Third Branch Conference, a coalition of grassroots groups that support conservative judicial nominees. Miranda said that if Graham and McCain are blocking Haynes “they should be called to reconcile in 2008.”
Sean Rushton, executive director of the Committee for Justice, an organization that defends judicial nominees, also expressed concern.
“If this turns out to be true it would be a great concern to the center-right coalition,” he said. “The principle for which we have fought so long is that nominees deserve up-or-down votes.”
“If Republicans are siding with Democrats to filibuster or use parliamentary tactics to deny a nominee a vote, that cuts against what we’ve been arguing in principle,” Rushton added.
Miranda and Rushton said they expect coalition of conservative groups to be formed to support Haynes’s nomination and press for his confirmation.
Rushton said that Haynes did not create the Defense Department’s policy on detainees, but helped implement it.
But in letter to the Judiciary Committee dated March 2004, the liberal group People for the American Way said that Haynes “played a central role in formulating the Bush administration’s policy regarding the detention of American citizens and foreigners as enemy combatants.”
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), who sits on the Judiciary Committee and is close to Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), is blocking a nominee to the federal bench whom Graham’s friend opposes, Senate sources say.
Lindsey Graham: This is a promise. Whomever runs against you has my vote. Period.
Stick with the original title--your additions only confuse. ;)
PING
Did you send a note to "The Great One"?
Actually the original title is posted incorrectly at The Hill.
If you are confused by the lines I add, keep it to yourself and do not complain like Lindey Graham.
This man needs to be EXTRACTED by the voters.
FYI
Answering the question, "is there a supposed Conservative who's a worse RINO than McCain?"
The problem is finding someone to run against him, and get the person in the primaries. But there's a lot of disgruntled GOP in SC, right now.
Your title is not the correct one, and it is confusing.
We are asked to post the correct titles when posting threads for good reason.
Deal with it, and don't whine like a brat when your error is pointed out in a polite manner.
Please forward this article to all.
Go to The Hill website link above and educate yourself.
Bolton, the author actually used the word "help" instead of "held".
I corrected it for him.
Original title at The Hill: Nominee is help up by Graham
?
Why dosent vice president(see Rush Limbaugh) Graham. and senate Popeye caracature McCainiac....just do the right thing and switch parties to the DIMS????
McCain as Popeye
It is a typo.
I emailed Bolton to correct it.
Read the article to see how Lindsey Graham is holding up Haynes.
McCain, McCain, McCain.
He is a wolf. Over and over again he shows he is not a conservative Republicans friend.
Just this week alone, voting for giving illegal foreign nationals social security to now helping hold up what appears a good judicial nominee.
The list with McCain is becoming endless.
God protect our nation if this Democrat named McCain ever becomes the GOP presidential candidate.
Nothing is more disturbing to the status quo than a man of conscience.
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