Posted on 11/21/2003 7:41:57 AM PST by Jeff Gannon
WASHINGTON (Talon News) -- The release of a series of Democrat strategy memos on judicial nominations has touched off yet another scandal in the already fractured Senate.
This time documents from the Judiciary Committee covering a period from late 2001 until April 2003 were obtained by the Wall Street Journal and became the basis for a November 14 editorial. Sen. Richard Durbin (D-IL) asked the Capitol Hill police to investigate the leak, suggesting espionage, but some speculate that a former Democrat staffer was the source of the memos.
While Democrats complain about how the memos became public, others are focusing on the information in the documents.
An April 2002 memo to Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-MA) indicates that the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) "would like the [Judiciary] Committee to hold off on any 6th Circuit nominees until the University of Michigan case regarding the constitutionality of affirmative action in higher education is decided by the en banc 6th Circuit."
The memo continues, "The thinking is that the current 6th Circuit will sustain the affirmative action program, but if a new judge with conservative views is confirmed before the case is decided, the new judge will be able ... to review the case and vote on it."
The memo indicates that staffers were concerned about the "propriety of scheduling hearings based on the resolution of a particular case," but also said, "Nevertheless we recommend that Gibbons be scheduled for a later hearing: the Michigan case is important."
The NAACP ultimately succeeded in convincing the Democrat-controlled Judiciary Committee to delay any nominees to the 6th Circuit until well after the Michigan case was decided.
Another of the memos details plans for a meeting in June 2002 with partisan groups to "discuss judicial nominations strategy." The meeting would include the same participants that came to a similar meeting in Kennedy's office in October 2001. The guest list contained the names of Kate Michelman (NARAL), Nan Aron (Alliance for Justice), Wade Henderson (Leadership Conference on Civil Rights), Ralph Neas (People For the American Way), Nancy Zirkin (American Association of University Women), Marcia Greenberger (National Women's Law Center), and Judy Lichtman (National Partnership).
The memos show how the groups identified nominees to be targeted for delay or filibuster and the political reasons to do so.
Kay Daly, president of the Coalition for a Fair Judiciary, issued a press release Wednesday in which she said, "The level of collusion between extreme left wing organizations and the Democrat members of the Senate Judiciary Committee is laid bare in these memos."
Daly went on to describe a memo, saying, "One memo is nothing less than a smoking gun. The April 2002 memo to Senator Ted Kennedy details a phone call from Elaine Jones of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund demanding that nominees to the Sixth Circuit be delayed until after an affirmative action case is decided so as to affect the outcome of the case. The implications here are nothing less than stunning."
"The documents make clear that a small collection of extreme left groups -- abortion groups, race organizations, and labor unions -- are driving the Democrats' agenda and decisions. These groups tell Democrats whom to attack and vote down, when to hold hearings on which nominee, how many hearings to hold and rules for allowing floor votes," Daly says.
Daly points out, "In one memo, Miguel Estrada is specifically targeted because he is 'Latino' and a potential Supreme Court nominee."
Estrada withdrew his name from consideration after waiting two years for an up or down vote on the Senate floor and being the first of six Bush judicial nominees to be filibustered.
"Strategizing is one thing. Ordering around United States senators to fulfill a specific extreme agenda to include affecting the outcome of court cases is quite another," said Daly. "These documents expose People for the American Way, NARAL, NAACP, Alliance for Justice and many other extremist organizations as the puppet masters and these Democrat Senators dutifully fulfilling the orders dispatched to them. It is disgusting and shameful."
Daly has called for the Senate Judiciary Committee and Senate leadership "to immediately launch an investigation into this matter."
Copyright © 2003 Talon News -- All rights reserved.
What happened to being well qualified, honest, and moral. These rats are beyond the pale, hypocrites, and disengenuous.
This excerpt from the memo, would make a great ad.!
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