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Senator Seeks a Consensus in Replacing Any Justice
By NEIL A. LEWIS
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/16/p...00&en=38454528211a069b&ei=5062&partner=GOOGLE
ASHINGTON, June 15 — Senator Patrick J. Leahy of Vermont has urged President Bush to avoid a traumatic national battle over the Supreme Court by consulting with him and other leading Democrats before choosing a nominee, should a vacancy occur.
In two recent letters to the White House, Mr. Leahy, the ranking Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, said that if Mr. Bush took advantage of a vacancy on the court to select a staunchly conservative judge, it would produce a political war that would upset the nation and diminish respect for the courts.
"Though the landscape ahead is sown with the potential for controversy and contention over vacancies that may arise on the court, contention is avoidable, and consensus should be our goal," Mr. Leahy wrote on Wednesday. "I would hope your objective will not be to send the Senate nominees so polarizing that their confirmations are eked out in narrow margins."
Mr. Leahy said his two letters urging a bipartisan process, the one on Wednesday and one sent on May 14, had not been answered.
A White House official said the second letter had not yet been received. But this official made it sound as if that did not matter.
"There are no vacancies on the Supreme Court, so these kinds of discussions are premature," this official said.
Mr. Leahy said in an interview that he believed that Mr. Bush had an opportunity to defuse a potentially explosive situation precisely because there was no vacancy.
The next few weeks, he said, will provide an opportunity for a bipartisan agreement that will be lost if a Supreme Court retirement is announced at the end of the term in a few weeks.
Conservatives and liberals have been planning for the possibility that at least one justice will retire at the end of the term, given the age of several of them and the belief that this is Mr. Bush's last chance to choose a justice before the presidential campaign begins in earnest.
"The courts are the one part of government people yearn to believe is free of politics," Mr. Leahy said. "That's why the Florida case shook people so much," a reference to the Supreme Court ruling in Bush v. Gore that resulted in Mr. Bush's presidency.
Underlying the latest proposal by Mr. Leahy are the myriad political calculations each side has been making for any Supreme Court resignation, nomination and confirmation fight.
So far, the Bush White House and Senate Democrats have chosen confrontation over several nominees for the federal appeals courts, the level just below the Supreme Court.
Although the Senate has 51 Republicans, a bare majority, Democrats have blocked votes on two appeals court nominees and are likely to do so with other candidates, by mounting filibusters, or extended debates.
Mr. Leahy would not name any candidate conservative enough to satisfy Mr. Bush but nonideological enough to win broad support in the Senate.
Senator Charles E. Schumer of New York, a Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, offered such a list to the White House last week. His recommendations included Senator Arlen Specter, Republican of Pennsylvania, who is also on the committee; Judge Edward Prado of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, who was nominated by Mr. Bush; and Judge Michael Mukasey of the Southern District of New York, who was nominated by President Ronald Reagan.
Mr. Leahy and Mr. Schumer noted that the chairman of the committee, Senator Orrin G. Hatch, Republican of Utah, had taken some credit for advising President Bill Clinton in his selection of Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen G. Breyer for the Supreme Court.
In his book "Square Peg" (Basic Books, 2002), Mr. Hatch asserts that he advised Mr. Clinton not to select Bruce Babbitt, one of his cabinet officers and a former Arizona governor, because that would produce a divisive fight. Mr. Hatch said he recommended Judge Ginsburg and Judge Breyer, Mr. Clinton's eventual appointments.
By NEIL A. LEWIS
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/16/p...00&en=38454528211a069b&ei=5062&partner=GOOGLE
ASHINGTON, June 15 — Senator Patrick J. Leahy of Vermont has urged President Bush to avoid a traumatic national battle over the Supreme Court by consulting with him and other leading Democrats before choosing a nominee, should a vacancy occur.
In two recent letters to the White House, Mr. Leahy, the ranking Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, said that if Mr. Bush took advantage of a vacancy on the court to select a staunchly conservative judge, it would produce a political war that would upset the nation and diminish respect for the courts.
"Though the landscape ahead is sown with the potential for controversy and contention over vacancies that may arise on the court, contention is avoidable, and consensus should be our goal," Mr. Leahy wrote on Wednesday. "I would hope your objective will not be to send the Senate nominees so polarizing that their confirmations are eked out in narrow margins."
Mr. Leahy said his two letters urging a bipartisan process, the one on Wednesday and one sent on May 14, had not been answered.
A White House official said the second letter had not yet been received. But this official made it sound as if that did not matter.
"There are no vacancies on the Supreme Court, so these kinds of discussions are premature," this official said.
Mr. Leahy said in an interview that he believed that Mr. Bush had an opportunity to defuse a potentially explosive situation precisely because there was no vacancy.
The next few weeks, he said, will provide an opportunity for a bipartisan agreement that will be lost if a Supreme Court retirement is announced at the end of the term in a few weeks.
Conservatives and liberals have been planning for the possibility that at least one justice will retire at the end of the term, given the age of several of them and the belief that this is Mr. Bush's last chance to choose a justice before the presidential campaign begins in earnest.
"The courts are the one part of government people yearn to believe is free of politics," Mr. Leahy said. "That's why the Florida case shook people so much," a reference to the Supreme Court ruling in Bush v. Gore that resulted in Mr. Bush's presidency.
Underlying the latest proposal by Mr. Leahy are the myriad political calculations each side has been making for any Supreme Court resignation, nomination and confirmation fight.
So far, the Bush White House and Senate Democrats have chosen confrontation over several nominees for the federal appeals courts, the level just below the Supreme Court.
Although the Senate has 51 Republicans, a bare majority, Democrats have blocked votes on two appeals court nominees and are likely to do so with other candidates, by mounting filibusters, or extended debates.
Mr. Leahy would not name any candidate conservative enough to satisfy Mr. Bush but nonideological enough to win broad support in the Senate.
Senator Charles E. Schumer of New York, a Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, offered such a list to the White House last week. His recommendations included Senator Arlen Specter, Republican of Pennsylvania, who is also on the committee; Judge Edward Prado of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, who was nominated by Mr. Bush; and Judge Michael Mukasey of the Southern District of New York, who was nominated by President Ronald Reagan.
Mr. Leahy and Mr. Schumer noted that the chairman of the committee, Senator Orrin G. Hatch, Republican of Utah, had taken some credit for advising President Bill Clinton in his selection of Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen G. Breyer for the Supreme Court.
In his book "Square Peg" (Basic Books, 2002), Mr. Hatch asserts that he advised Mr. Clinton not to select Bruce Babbitt, one of his cabinet officers and a former Arizona governor, because that would produce a divisive fight. Mr. Hatch said he recommended Judge Ginsburg and Judge Breyer, Mr. Clinton's eventual appointments.
