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Thad Cochran tries to rescue Bush nominee |
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By Alexander Bolton
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Posted: 07/03/07 07:24 PM [ET] |
Sen. Thad Cochran (R-Miss.) is making a last-ditch effort to save the nomination of an appellate court nominee from his home state by appealing to Democratic colleagues on the Appropriations Committee.
As the senior Republican member of Appropriations, Cochran seems to have decided he has a better chance of changing the minds of Judiciary Committee Democrats who work with him regularly to win funding for their favorite projects and causes. Cochran’s push may be all the more effective because Senate Republican leaders have hinted they will derail spending bills if Democrats obstruct conservative nominees.
A prominent conservative activist said Republicans could slow appropriations bills if Democrats keep Leslie Southwick, a nominee to the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, bottled up in committee.
In the wake of Cochran’s efforts, at least one Democratic appropriator on Judiciary, Sen. Herb Kohl (D-Wis.), met with Southwick late Thursday after his nomination appeared to have died.
Cochran, who has known Southwick for years, is working with Sen. Arlen Specter (Pa.), the top-ranking Republican on Judiciary and the senior Republican on the Appropriations labor, health and human services subcommittee. On June 14, Specter asked for a vote on Southwick’s nomination to be postponed so that he, Cochran, and other allies would have more time to convince Democrats to support the nomination.
Southwick has drawn strong Democratic opposition because he joined two controversial opinions while serving on the Mississippi Court of Appeals. In one case, Southwick joined a narrow majority to uphold the reinstatement of a white state employee who had lost his job for using a racial slur. In another, he joined a decision to award custody of an 8-year-old child to her father instead of her bisexual mother. The decision inflamed liberal activists for its pointed use of the word “homosexual” instead of “gay.”
But Republican support for Southwick is said to be as fervent as Democratic opposition, setting the stage for a spirited fight.
“I’ve conferred with Sens. [Dianne] Feinstein (D-Calif.) and Kohl and asked them to meet with Judge Southwick; he was here this week specially to answer any questions that the senators wanted to ask,” Cochran said Thursday.
Cochran said he had “one-on-one” conversations with Feinstein and Kohl and also asked Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) to meet with Southwick. Cochran said he addressed other members of the Judiciary Committee as a group in public session when he introduced Southwick at a confirmation hearing.
Kohl, Feinstein and Leahy merited individual attention because, in addition to being viewed as the most open-minded Democrats on Judiciary, they hold senior posts on Appropriations.
Kohl is chairman of the Appropriations agriculture subcommittee; Feinstein is chairwoman of the Appropriations interior subcommittee; and Leahy is chairman of the Appropriations state and foreign operations subcommittee.
Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (Ill.) is the fourth Democrat who serves on both panels. As a member of the Democratic
leadership, Republicans say they cannot persuade Durbin.
Kohl met with Southwick Thursday after the Judiciary Committee once again postponed action on him.
“My understanding is the committee wasn’t going to bring it up again,” Kohl spokesman Joe Bonfiglio said of the nomination.
Curt Levey, the executive director of the Committee for Justice, a conservative group that has taken a leading role in supporting President Bush’s judicial nominations, said there are two reasons Cochran targeted Kohl, Feinstein and Leahy.
“I think there are two reasons for that: The threat various Republican leaders have made is that they will slow things down for Democrats on the floor or in the committee if [Democrats] obstruct nominees. And Appropriations is the most obvious place to do that.
“They’ll certainly use it as a threat,” Levey added. “If Southwick is voted down they will follow through and slow things down on appropriations.”
Levey said the second reason is that Kohl and Feinstein are seen as the most open-minded Democrats on Judiciary. He said Leahy might be persuaded “because he’s made promises to Republicans [about moving judicial nominees] and might feel the obligation to get Southwick out of committee.”
When asked about Southwick, Specter noted his relationship with the Appropriations Committee, but he said that would only go so far to win the nominee’s confirmation.
“I’ve got a good relationship with one appropriator especially: the one I see in the mirror,” Specter said. “But relationships only go so far and then you get to what [colleagues’] judgments are. We’re working on it.”
Cochran said he has not tried to link Appropriations issues with Southwick’s fate.
“We haven’t talked about appropriations,” Cochran said. “All I’m doing is asking the senators to consider his qualifications and to confirm him. The reason I talked to them is [because] they’re on the Judiciary Committee and because
I’ve known them well for a long time.
“I’m relying on the fact that the committee will do what’s right about confirming a person who’s totally well-qualified and has an unblemished record of outstanding service in the judiciary of the state of Mississippi,” said Cochran. “There’s never been a complaint about his integrity, his judgment, his sense of fairness.”
The American Bar Association (ABA) rated Southwick “unanimously well-qualified,” the highest rating a judicial nominee can receive.
Liberal opponents say that’s not enough to merit confirmation. They say the ABA does not consider a nominee’s record on civil rights, for example.
Liberal activists also say a black judge should fill the open 5th Circuit seat.
“Out of Mississippi, a state with a large African-American population, there has never been an African-American on the 5th Circuit,” said Judith Schaeffer, the legal director at People for the American Way, a liberal advocacy group. Schaeffer emphasized, however, that her organization did not oppose Southwick because of his race.
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