Senate Republican Leaders Do Not Care About The Effect Of Judges
By Thomas L. Jipping
http://www.freecongress.org
For years now, conservatives and even Republicans have been asking why the Republican Senate has been so cooperative in confirming President Clinton's judicial nominees. The reason is that the Republican leadership continues to treat judges not as crucial for our freedom, or even the success of their own legislative agenda, but as bargaining chips to trade for short term political benefits.
Republicans have run the Senate for five of Mr. Clinton's first seven years in office. Republicans ran the Senate for six of President Reagan's first seven years in office. Since the two parties claim to have very different positions on the kind of judge America needs, you'd think the GOP would confirm many more nominees of a Republican president and hold back on confirming nominees of a Democratic president. You'd think that, but you'd be wrong. A Republican Senate helped Mr. Reagan appoint 336 judges in seven years, and a Republican Senate helped Mr. Clinton appoint 334 judges in seven years.
The reason is simply that Senate Republican leaders do not care about judges or what they do to the country. For the leadership, judicial nominees are just another set of bargaining chips. The facts speak for themselves. Shortly after he became Majority Leader, Senator Trent Lott said on the Senate floor on July 9, 1996, that he would not use any philosophical principles in deciding how the Senate would consider judicial nominees. He said: "I am trying to take them up in a logical order to get the calendar acted on in this regard." In the spring of 1997, they passed a resolution condemning judicial activism, saying that it "threatens the basic democratic values on which our Constitution is founded." Wow, that's a serious indictment. Yet the Senate that year confirmed 50% more judges than the year before and in 1998 confirmed more judges than in all but three of the previous 18 years. On October 21, 1998, Senator Lott proved again that he is indeed not guided by philosophical principles in confirming judges. He confirmed 17 judges in about 10 minutes on that day as a bribe to keep Mr. Clinton from vetoing the final appropriations bill. They all just wanted to go home and campaign for re-election.
Last year the same thing happened. On September 29, Senator Lott promised a group of conservatives that he would bring up two controversial appeals court nominations only if the votes were there to defeat them. Unknown to the conservatives who believed the Senator's words, the very same day a friend of Senator Lott's was nominated to serve on the board of directors of the Tennessee Valley Authority. On November 10, 1999, Senator Lott broke his promise and agreed to bring up those appeals court nominations by March 15. Guess what? That same day, his friend's nomination was confirmed.
And now we are going through it all over again. Last year a group of Senators, led by James Inhofe of Oklahoma, told Mr. Clinton they would block his future judicial nominees if he violated an agreement regarding making appointments without Senate approval during congressional recesses. When Mr. Clinton violated that agreement, this group of 19 Senators pledged to keep their word and block his appointments. Though Senator Lott had said nothing during the weeks and months that this strategy was laid out, last week he suddenly rejected it and began confirming judges. Why would he turn his back on his own Republican Senators like that?
Wouldn't you know it, just the day before Mr. Clinton appointed someone Senator Lott favored to the Federal Election Commission. Law professor Bradley Smith advocates repealing limits on campaign contributions. His appointment gives Republicans a 3-2 majority on the FEC. So it seems Senator Lott has, in a strange sort of way, kept his word after all. He said in 1996 that he would not make decisions about confirming Clinton judges based on any philosophical principles. He will do so based on budget politics, to secure patronage jobs for his friends, and to protect the flow of money into political coffers, but philosophical principles certainly won't get in the way. If we were not talking about something as important as our freedom, this would just be unseemly, petty, and crass politics. But the Republican leadership is trading our freedom for short-term political favors, a sure prescription both for our loss and theirs.
Thomas Jipping is Director of the Free Congress Foundation's Center for Law & Democracy.