August 30, 2006
By DEB RIECHMANN
AP
In a move to satisfy the GOP's most conservative supporters, President Bush on Wednesday nominated five people as appeals court judges, including one whom Democrats have threatened to block with a filibuster.
News that Bush had decided to nominate the five conservative jurists came just before Bush spoke at a fundraiser for Bob Corker, who faces a tough Senate race against Democratic nominee Harold Ford Jr.
"I need a U.S. senator who understands that we need people on the bench who will strictly interpret the Constitution and not use the bench to legislate," Bush said.
A White House statement said Bush was nominating Terrence Boyle of North Carolina and William James Haynes II of Virginia to the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Va.; Michael Brunson Wallace of Mississippi to the 5th Circuit in New Orleans; and William Gerry Myers III and Norman Randy Smith, both of Idaho, for the 9th Circuit in San Francisco.
Jim Manley, a spokesman for Democratic Senate leader Harry Reid of Nevada, called the judicial nominations - an issue that has been a rallying cry of the conservative wing of the Republican Party - "extremely divisive."
"We have a limited number of legislative days left before Congress adjourns for the year and much to do, but instead of working with Democrats on issues important to the American people, the president has, once again, chosen confrontation over cooperation with these extremely divisive nominations," Manley said.
Ralph Neas, president of the liberal People for the American Way, agreed: "Pandering to his ultraconservative base always seems to trump any commitment to constitutional rights and liberties."
Manuel Miranda, chairman of the Third Branch Conference, which supports judges with conservative judicial philosophies, said the announcement is Bush's way of saying that he expects the Senate to act on judges in September, and that he does not want to give Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist any room to do otherwise.
The White House is telling Frist, who appeared with Bush at the fundraiser, and North Carolina Sen. Elizabeth Dole, the leader of the Republican campaign committee for the Senate, that "that if they lose a single Senate seat for not exciting GOP supporters to the polls, the fault lies with them and not with the president's team," Miranda said.
"This shows that (Bush's chief political adviser) Karl Rove is on the ball and wants judges back on the front burner in the Senate."
Bush's picks for the federal bench have stirred contentious debate in the Senate. Reid has said his party would filibuster Boyle's nomination if it came to the floor.
In July, Boyle acknowledged missing the appearance of a conflict of interest in four cases in which he is accused of issuing rulings involving litigants in whose companies his family held stock. Boyle said then that his aides, who do routine screening of cases for conflicts of interest, missed the appearance in these instances.
"These situations were an oversight, an inadvertent mistake," Boyle wrote in a letter responding to questions from Frist, R-Tenn., and Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter, R-Pa.
"Accordingly, I unknowingly and unintentionally participated in these cases while I held a minimal number of shares in one of the parties," Boyle added. "Whatever minor financial interest I may have had in the case in no way affected my decision-making or the outcome of the case."
It was not clear whether Boyle's letter improved his prospects for confirmation, but Bush's renomination of Boyle was a sign that he had not given up on his effort to get him approved.
Also in July, Haynes, an architect of the Bush administration's policy toward detainee treatment that was later abandoned, told a Senate panel that reversing the policy was the "right thing to do."
Haynes told the panel that he was glad the Justice Department reversed an opinion he had requested that cleared the way for the torture of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay. Requesting the opinion as the Pentagon's top lawyer in 2002 "was a mistake," Haynes said.
It was unclear whether Haynes' revised outlook on the treatment of detainees solidified already shaky Senate support for his nomination. Reid left open the prospect of blocking Haynes' nomination with a filibuster.
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