Posted on 01/09/2003 1:29:17 PM PST by Dog Gone
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Key Senate Democrats, eager for a high-profile debate on civil rights, said on Thursday they believe they will have the votes needed to block the appointment of Charles Pickering, who was renominated this week by President Bush as a federal appeals court judge.
Republicans control the Senate, 51 to 48 with one independent but under Senate rules, Democrats would need just 41 votes to prevent confirmation of Pickering, whose appointment is strongly opposed by civil rights activists.
"I haven't done a count but my sense is that we will have 41 votes," said Senate Democratic Whip Harry Reid of Nevada.
The battle promises to be reminiscent of the racially charged furor that last month brought down Pickering's friend and fellow Mississippian, Trent Lott, as Senate Republican leader. Lott bowed to public pressure and stepped aside as leader after making remarks seen as supporting segregation.
Democrats are calculating that a Senate debate on Pickering could enhance their credentials as allies of minorities and undermine Republican efforts to reach out to them.
Democratic Sens. Richard Durbin of Illinois and Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York agreed with Reid's assessment there would be the votes to block Pickering.
Sen. Charles Schumer, a New York Democrat helping lead the charge, said: "I'm hopeful, very hopeful. We are working on it hard. We are getting a very good response."
Republicans and Democrats traditionally permit up-or-down confirmation votes on the Senate floor on judicial nominees, and Republicans warned it would be a mistake for Democrats to stage a vote-blocking filibuster.
"If they hope to ever regain the Senate, they might want to think twice about this," Sen. Don Nickles, an Oklahoma Republican, said on Thursday. "Two can play this game."
Nickles said he was uncertain if Democrats could defeat Pickering with a filibuster, but he does not expect Bush to withdraw the nomination.
NOMINATION CARRIES A MESSAGE
"The president sent a message with the nomination that Pickering wasn't treated fairly by the last Senate and deserves to be voted on by the full Senate this time," said Nickles.
Last March, the Judiciary Committee, then led by Democrats, in a party-line vote rejected Bush's bid to elevate Pickering from a federal district judgeship in Mississippi to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans.
The panel did so largely because of criticism of his civil rights record, which included his efforts as a judge to reduce the sentence of a man convicted in a 1994 cross-burning case.
Pickering was opposed by a number of groups, including the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights.
Yet he was backed by some key community leaders in his home state, including Charles Evers, brother of slain civil rights leader Medgar Evers. They noted the former state senator had the courage to oppose the Ku Klux Klan in the 1960s.
Bush marked the opening of the new Republican-led Senate on Tuesday by renominating Pickering and 30 other judicial nominees who failed to get confirmation in the previous Democratic-led chamber.
The Congressional Black Caucus, which helped topple Lott, on Thursday took aim at Pickering as well as many of these other conservative nominees.
"Confirming many of these nominees ... could completely overturn the progress toward national reconciliation that our nation has made during the last 50 years," said Democratic Rep. Elijah Cummings of Maryland, the group's chairman. The caucus is composed of 39 members of the House of Representatives.
Because they didn't have to. It was easier to just kill it in committee. Filibusters can be very risky politically.
Wow! Did you know that, Kevin? Apparently ALL "civil rights activists" oppose this guy — every last mother's son of them! ALL of them!
Reuters could just as easily have written "whose appointment is strongly supported by civil rights activists".
Like, for example, the former head of the NAACP chapter in Pickering's hometown:
But such comments carry little weight among those who actually know the man personally here in Laurel, in southeast Mississippi. Judge Pickering, now a federal district judge in the nearby city of Hattiesburg, was praised by black city officials for helping to set up after- school youth programs here, and for directing federal money to medical clinics in low-income areas when he was a state senator. Black business leaders say he was influential in persuading white-owned banks to lend money to black entrepreneurs, helping to strengthen the city's black middle class.The above passage is from http://www.aclj.org/news/judicialconf/020218_pickering_home_support.asp, which does a *spectacular* job of documenting how well-liked and admired Pickering is by those blacks who have known him for years, and the sort of vicious propaganda campaign that national "black" organizations are waging against him because he's not liberal."I can't believe the man they're describing in Washington is the same one I've known for years," said Thaddeus Edmonson, a former local president of the N.A.A.C.P. who is now president of the seven-member Laurel City Council and one of its five black members. "If those people who are voting against him because of some press release would just come down here and talk to the people who know him, I think they would have a very different opinion."
Local leaders' support for Judge Pickering has put them at odds with several black state officials and the Mississippi conference of the N.A.A.C.P., which oppose his appointment. Bennie Thompson, a Democrat who represents the Delta region on the opposite side of the state in Congress, has called the judge's black supporters "Judases." State N.A.A.C.P. officials say the judge's supporters in Laurel have succumbed to an effort to cover up his feelings with small acts of kindness. This alternately angers and amuses local residents, who say no such masquerade can last for decades. "If he's been putting on a show for us, it's the greatest show on earth," said Mr. Thomas, who runs the city's only black-owned pharmacy and who served with Mr. Pickering on the local economic development board in the 1980's.And:
Ralph Neas, president of People for the American Way, which is leading the opposition to the appointment, said many of the judge's supporters in Laurel simply did not know the full details of his record.Note how condescending the national liberal groups are towards Pickering's black supporters...
Let him through and he will shoot himself in the foot sooner or later.
I was wondering if there was something in his history that lead you to that conclusion.
Ridiculous.
Lott was changed because the Republicans decided it would be that way.....from the beginning of the episode all the way to the end.
I'm left wondering if this slightly altered passage from the article could've been so inoccuously presented in a straightforward news piece:
"Republicans are calculating that the Willie Horton ad could enhance their credentials as allies of whites and undermine Democratic efforts to reach out to them."
Ya think?
What progress?!! The very Lott gambit, the success of which has so encouraged these agitators and demagogues, shows that we have made no progress whatsoever towards national reconciliation. So long as one region of the United States is still pilloried for daring to have a different perspective, there is no reconciliation. Rep. Cummings apparently equates reconciliation with those who disagree with him forever shutting up and going away! That is not how others would define it.
As I predicted, the foolish way the Republicans inside the Beltway--including Senator Lott, himself--responded to the smear attack on Lott, is going to haunt us for some time to come. (See Anatomy Of A Smear.)
William Flax
But evidence that emerged during the sentencing phase of the trial suggested that one of the defendants who got off with no jail was not only the ringleader in the crime but also had a significant history of racial hatred, which is required for long sentences under the federal hate crime statute. There was far less evidence of racial animus on Swan's part; in fact, seven witnesses, both black and white, testified that they were not aware of any racial animus he might have held against black people. While Pickering did not object to sending Swan to prison - he was clearly guilty of taking part in the cross burning - the judge believed that the seven and a half year sentence was too severe, given that a more culpable co-defendant was given no jail time at all.
Pickering asked Justice Department lawyers whether the seven-and-a-half year sentence recommendation was consistent with department practice in other areas of the country. When weeks went by without an answer, Pickering phoned Frank Hunger, a friend from Mississippi who was also a top official in the Justice Department, to express his frustration. Nothing came of the conversation - Hunger told Pickering it wasn't his area of responsibility - but the call caught Edwards's attention.
"You made a telephone call to a high ranking Justice Department official, according to the information that we have," Edwards said, "And you are familiar, are you not, judge, with the Code of Judicial Ethics that applies to you? You are familiar with that, are you not?"
"I am," Pickering said.
"And are you familiar with Canon 3(a)(4) of that Code which says, 'except as authorized by law, a judge should neither initiate nor consider ex parte communications on the merits of a pending or impending proceeding' [The ex parte rule is intended to insure that judges do not make separate deals or in any way favor one side or the other]. Did you make a phone call to a high ranking Justice Department official on your own initiative?"
"We had had - "Pickering began to answer.
"Not 'we,'" Edwards interrupted. "You. Did you make this phone call?"
"I've indicated I called Mr. Hunger and discussed the fact that I was frustrated I could not got a response back from the Justice Department, and I thought there was a tremendous amount of disparity in this sentence."
"Were the government prosecutors on the phone when you made that call?"
"No, they were not."
"So that would be what we lawyers and judges would call an ex parte communication, would it not?"
"Well, whether the government attorneys had been on the phone or not, it would have been a question of whether the defense counsel had been on the phone," Pickering said.
"Was the defense counselor on the phone?" Edwards asked.
"No, we had discussed that with them, and this was a follow-up conversation as to what we had discussed with defense counsel present," Pickering said.
"Were any of the lawyers in the case on the phone when you called Mr. Hunger?" Edwards asked.
"No, they were not."
"So that was an ex parte communication, was it not?"
"It was."
"In violation of the Code of Judicial Conduct."
"I did not consider it to be in violation of the Code of Judicial Conduct."
"Well, could you explain that to me?" Edwards pressed. "The Code says you should 'neither initiate nor consider ex parte communications in a pending or impending proceeding.'"
It was something of a Perry Mason moment, at least as far as normally sedate confirmation hearings are concerned. But there was a problem. Edwards, perhaps following his trial lawyer's instinct as he moved in for the kill, misstated the Code he had read to Pickering just moments before. The Code says this: "A judge should...neither initiate nor consider ex parte communications on the merits, or procedures affecting the merits, of a pending or impending proceeding." [Italics added] Pickering clearly stated that he discussed his intentions with both sides in the case and that the call to Hunger was a "follow-up" to see if the Justice Department was going to respond to his questions. None of that touched on the merits of the case (a conclusion a number of legal experts came to when they examined Pickering's behavior in the case). In addition, Frank Hunger, a lifelong Democrat who also happens to be Al Gore's brother-in-law, told the Judiciary Committee there was nothing improper about that call, adding, "I have known Judge Pickering for nearly thirty years and have the utmost respect for him as a fair-minded judge who would never knowingly do anything improper or unethical." But it didn't matter; Edwards had made Pickering look guilty.
BINGO!!!
I hope FReepers are praying for Pickering successful re-nomination effort. God Bless him for being willing to undergo this again-and may God allow the distortions and wrongful smears to be exposed to all for exactly what they are....
Please send up a pray for Judge Pickering folks-and for the men and women who will vote over his nomination. We needs our Father's help in stopping this senseless and extremely hurtful smear process. Especially when it is so very unfounded.
And many hugs and kudos to our President for having the courage to do the right thing!
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