|
Pickering judicial nomination { December 18 2002 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/12/18/politics/18JUDG.htmlhttp://www.nytimes.com/2002/12/18/politics/18JUDG.html
December 18, 2002
Upheaval on Lott Is Said To Hurt Chances of Judge Seeking an Appeals Seat
By NEIL A. LEWIS
WASHINGTON, Dec. 17 — Charles W. Pickering Sr., a federal trial judge in Hattiesburg, Miss., had every reason to believe he would soon be elevated to the federal appeals court in New Orleans with the support of his good friend Trent Lott, who was due to become majority leader in a Senate controlled by Republicans.
But Senator Lott's new troubles have badly hurt Judge Pickering's prospects, Bush administration and Congressional officials said today.
Judge Pickering's nomination to the appeals court was rejected in March by the Senate Judiciary Committee, then Democratic-controlled, in part over his record on racial matters in his home state. Administration officials said at the time that he had been treated unfairly, and, in the aftermath of the Republican success in the November elections, they planned to make a political statement by having the president renominate him as soon as the new Senate convened in January.
But the racial nature of the controversy surrounding Mr. Lott, a fellow Mississippian and Judge Pickering's principal patron, may change that.
One senior administration official said today that given the circumstances, it was hard to imagine that the White House and the Republican Party would be willing to endure a debate about Judge Pickering that would surely focus on his record in the volatile arena of race in Mississippi. Another senior official said that while the administration was aware of that drawback, it was inclined to see how the Lott controversy played out before making any decision on Judge Pickering.
The judge's supporters have asserted that over the course of decades in Mississippi's turbulent racial atmosphere, Judge Pickering acted honorably, even testifying against members of the Ku Klux Klan at a murder trial in the 1960's, when it was dangerous to do so.
Nonetheless, the matters advanced by Judge Pickering's critics as evidence of his insensitivity to race would inevitably be uncomfortable reminders of the firestorm surrounding Mr. Lott, touched off by the senator's recent praise for the 1948 presidential candidacy of Strom Thurmond, who bolted the Democratic Party to run on a segregationist Dixiecrat platform. Mr. Pickering himself abandoned the Democratic Party in 1964, the year that a credentials challenge by a largely black group from Mississippi ultimately led most of the state's all-white delegation to walk out of the party's national convention.
One Democratic member of the Judiciary Committee, Senator Charles E. Schumer of New York, said he had sent President Bush a letter asking him to abandon plans to renominate Judge Pickering.
"My first hope is that he is not renominated," Mr. Schumer said in an interview. "The remarks that Senator Lott made come from the same type of insensitivity that we found in Judge Pickering and led us to the conclusion that he didn't merit promotion to a higher court. If anything, the reaction to Lott's comments reinforce that view."
If Judge Pickering is renominated, Mr. Schumer said, a rich Senate floor debate on race will be inevitable.
In addition to his changing his party affiliation in 1964, Democrats have criticized Judge Pickering for having made an unusual effort from the bench to reduce the sentence of a man convicted of burning a cross on the lawn of a mixed-race couple. The committee debate also touched on Mr. Pickering's contacts, as a state legislator in the 1970's, with the Sovereignty Commission, which was created by the state in 1956 to take the lead in preserving segregation.
Most troubling for Judge Pickering's chances may be remarks that a contrite Mr. Lott made on Monday in his interview with Black Entertainment Television. Asked whether he would still support the Pickering nomination, the senator said: "He is a good man who — and is not a racist or a segregationist in any way. The things — many of the things said against him he was not guilty of. But having said that, you know, I'll have to weigh all my actions differently and more carefully."
Senator Orrin G. Hatch, the Utah Republican who will regain the Judiciary chairmanship next month, said through a spokeswoman that he still expected to receive and approve the nomination. Margarita Tapia, the Hatch aide, said Mr. Lott's comments about Mr. Thurmond were not relevant to the nomination, and added, "We are hopeful that opponents of President Bush's judges will not use the race card as an issue to obstruct the confirmation process."
Another factor that might discourage the White House from renominating Judge Pickering is that his confirmation would not necessarily be a sure thing. One Senate Republican aide said it was unclear whether the Republicans, who will hold only 51 of the Senate's 100 seats, would be able to get every member of the caucus to vote for the nomination.
But if renominating Judge Pickering would be awkward for Mr. Bush, so would declining to do so. Although White House officials made clear the last time around that Judge Pickering had been nominated solely at the behest of Senator Lott, Mr. Bush went out of his way to praise him.
"I've known him for a long time," the president said at a White House rally before the committee vote. "This is a good, good, honorable citizen, and they're playing politics with him up there."
Copyright The New York Times Company | Permissions | Privacy Policy
|
|
