Clinton Fumes About Judgeships

BALTIMORE —  An emotional President Clinton accused Republicans of fighting his attempts to diversify the federal bench Thursday, and he lambasted Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.) for blocking his every effort to “integrate” the conservative, all-white U.S. 4th Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Va.

“This is outrageous!” Clinton said, thumping the lectern for emphasis as a huge and adoring black audience cheered him on.

“The circuit court with the highest percentage of African Americans in the country--[but] not one, single [black] judge on the Court of Appeals,” Clinton fumed.

In a sharply partisan speech at the 91st annual convention of the National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People, the president also condemned Texas Gov. George W. Bush for his “stone-cold silence” in the face of what Clinton seemed to regard as racially motivated opposition on the part of some Republicans to his judicial nominations.

The president has criticized the GOP-controlled Senate many times previously for its outright rejection of his judicial appointees who are minorities or for its refusal to vote on their nominations at all.

But Clinton has not used such strong language on the subject before.

He delivered his speech without a text before several thousand cheering conventioneers, and their unflagging expressions of support may well have encouraged the president’s long-standing frustrations to boil over.

Later, a top White House aide confirmed as much, saying that Clinton’s language indicated that he has become “increasingly frustrated at the pace of action” on his nominations to the nation’s federal courts.

Clinton’s harshest comments came near the end of a 45-minute speech in which he also lavishly praised Vice President Al Gore and First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton.

The president’s remarks capped a remarkably political week at the half-million-member civil rights organization’s meeting. Bush addressed the group on Monday, Hillary Clinton on Tuesday and Gore on Wednesday.

It was Clinton’s final NAACP appearance as president, and the session was bathed in mutual nostalgia.

Even before he began to speak, Clinton appeared to be wiping tears from his eyes as NAACP Chairman Julian Bond and President Kweisi Mfume showered him with praise.

Clinton prefaced his attack on the Republicans over the federal bench by saying that judicial appointments are “one of the most important responsibilities” awaiting his successor.

He predicted that the next president in his first term will get to fill two to four vacancies on the Supreme Court, “more than a score--much more” of court of appeals judges, and 100 or more federal district court judges.

Then Clinton excoriated the GOP-controlled Senate for defeating his nominee for a district court judgeship in Missouri, Ronnie White, in a straight party-line vote last year.

“It was awful,” the president said.

Among the many judicial nominations pending are two African Americans up for seats on the appellate court in Richmond, which oversees federal cases in five Southern states, from Maryland to South Carolina.

But Helms has blocked a hearing on North Carolina state Appeals Judge James W. Wynn Jr. Earlier, Helms vetoed two other Clinton appointees, also black, to the same vacancy.

Referring to Helms, Clinton told the NAACP:

“I think it’s interesting that, for over seven years now, he has stopped my attempts to integrate the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals. And the Republican majority has made no move to change the tide, to turn the policy.”

Then the president turned to Bush as he cited the nomination of Enrique Moreno to the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals. Clinton noted that both Texas senators, Republicans Phil Gramm and Kay Bailey Hutchison, are blocking Moreno’s nomination, contending that he is unqualified--even though the American Bar Assn. unanimously gave Moreno, a Harvard Law School graduate, its top rating.

Clinton called the opposition to Moreno “another travesty of justice” and then excoriated Bush for his silence on the matter.

“Why don’t they want to give these people hearings and a vote? Because they don’t want them on the court. But they don’t want you to know they don’t want them on the court,” he charged.

Clinton said he believes that opponents of his minority nominees only “want people who are ideological purists.”

While the president stopped short of assigning motive to GOP objections, NAACP’s Bond did not.

In an interview after the president’s speech, Bond said that Senate Republicans had “mugged” White, calling his rejection “nothing but racial animus.”

As for the Senate’s refusal to take up the other minority court nominations, Bond said: “The white Republicans in the Senate are refusing to consider them--that’s not prima facie evidence of racism. But you know the old saying: ‘If it looks like a duck and if it walks like a duck. . . .’ This is a duck.”

Bond said the issue of judicial appointments will be “central” in this year’s elections.

Helms’ office did not respond to requests for comment about Clinton’s charges. A spokesman for Gramm recalled a letter that the senator had sent Clinton last month in which he accused the president of exploiting the issue of judicial nominations to “extract political contributions” for the Democratic Party.