Ashcroft Faces Tough Nomination Hearing

WASHINGTON —  Democratic senators warned Sunday that Sen. John Ashcroft (R-Mo.), President-elect George W. Bush’s nominee for attorney general, faces tough cross-examination over his opposition to a black judicial appointment and his willingness to enforce a law guaranteeing access to abortion clinics.

“We’ll have a very fair hearing,” Sen. Patrick J. Leahy of Vermont, the senior Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, said on ABC’s “This Week.” But, he stressed, “there will be tough questions.”

No senators said they are prepared to vote against Ashcroft, and opponents of the nomination in the liberal interest group community are pessimistic about their prospects of defeating Ashcroft.

But both Democrats and leaders of liberal advocacy groups see the Ashcroft hearings as an opportunity to begin to mobilize two key constituencies--African Americans and suburban women who support abortion rights--in preparation for both future battles over nominees to the Supreme Court and for the 2002 House and Senate elections.

Likewise, some conservatives are urging that Bush steadfastly refuse to bend to liberal pressure on his nominees and say they will oppose any who have even a hint of liberalism.

“This is when compassion runs head-on into conservatism,” said Democratic media consultant Bill Knapp, who worked on the unsuccessful campaign of Vice President Al Gore.

“The Bush campaign was a brilliant selling job,” Knapp said. “They worked hard and aggressively to hide the public differences, to shave them. ‘Yeah, we both have prescription drug plans.’ They made real public policy differences mind-numbingly dense to people. Now, Bush has to make real political choices every day.”

Ashcroft, Leahy said, will be asked to explain his opposition to the appointment of Ronnie White, a black Missouri Supreme Court justice, to a seat on the federal bench, and whether his adamant opposition to abortion will interfere with his ability to enforce federal laws protecting abortion rights.

Leahy was already prepared Sunday to challenge Ashcroft’s charges that White was too favorable to criminal rights and excessively opposed to the death penalty. With documents in hand, Leahy quoted the Missouri Fraternal Order of Police defending White, and he pointed out that White supported the death penalty in the majority of cases before him and had often joined with Ashcroft-appointed judges when he overturned death penalties.

Along similar lines, Sen. Bob Graham (D-Fla.) warned on CBS’ “Face the Nation”: “There are going to be a lot of questions about Sen. Ashcroft. Mainly I think they will focus on the question of whether the instance of Judge White represented a credible basis for his change in position and ultimate rejection of that nomination or whether it raises some troubling questions as to a pattern of dealing with issues of minorities.”

Republican senators defended Ashcroft’s record. Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) said on “This Week” that Ashcroft “has a great record of equal justice for all. As a matter of fact, he’s received awards for his support of the African American community in Missouri. . . . Anybody that knows John knows that he is a man of great integrity.”

Ashcroft’s prospects for winning Senate approval are strong because ex-senators have traditionally won the backing of their former colleagues, and many moderate-to-liberal Democrats have indicated that barring new, damaging disclosures, they are not inclined to oppose the nomination.

Nevertheless, liberal groups are putting together material encouraging that Ashcroft be questioned about his acceptance of an honorary degree from Bob Jones University and an interview he gave to the pro-Confederate Southern Partisan magazine in which he stressed the importance “of defending Southern patriots like [Robert E.] Lee, [Stonewall] Jackson and [Confederate President Jefferson] Davis.”

Officials of Bob Jones University have denounced the Catholic and Mormon churches, and, until recently, prohibited interracial dating.

While the odds heavily favor approval of the Ashcroft nomination, a number of Democratic and liberal advocacy group strategists described the process, in the words of one partisan, as “a warmup for the playoffs.”

Even before Bush announced the selection of Ashcroft, leading abortion rights, civil rights and civil liberties groups had begun to mobilize for what they expect will be major judicial confirmation fights. They said they anticipate that Bush will live up to his campaign promise to appoint federal judges, most importantly Supreme Court nominees, in the mold of conservative Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas, and if he does so, they will do all they can to defeat the nominations.

The mobilization of forces in opposition “would be unprecedented in its scope,” said Ralph Neas, the president of People for the American Way who led confirmation fights in his past role as head of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights.