Pickering Vote Delayed Again
Feature Story by Suzanne Lee - 3/8/2002
WASHINGTON, D.C. - For the second week in a row, the vote to determine the fate of President Bush's controversial judicial nominee, Charles Pickering, Sr. has been delayed. Shortly before the scheduled vote, Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT), the ranking Republican member on the Senate Judiciary Committee, delayed the vote for another week. The day before, the President publicly defended his choice for the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. It was Senate Minority Leader Trent Lott (R-MS), not a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, who initially pushed the vote back a week after the scheduled date.Hatch's decision to delay the vote on Judge Pickering is seen as an attempt by Republican supporters to quell the growing opposition against the embattled nominee to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. However, following the first request to delay, objections to the appointment have continued to mount.
Leaders from within the Fifth Circuit, which consists of Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi and has the largest minority population in the country, have continued to inundate the Senate Judiciary Committee with letters of concern over Pickering's very conservative record in such issues as voting rights, employment discrimination, and abortion urging the rejection of Judge Pickering. Sandra Jaribu Hill, the executive director of the Mississippi Workers' Center for Human Rights wrote to Senator Leahy, "With the nomination of Pickering, Bush has once again thumbed his nose at African-Americans, Latinos, and other minorities."
These sentiments were echoed by Eileen deHaro, president of the Louisiana American Association of University Women, speaking both as a representative of the AAUW and as a resident of the Fifth Circuit: "Charles Pickering's record as a district court judge and as a state senator shows his hostility to AAUW priorities, including reproductive, women's, and civil rights. Further, throughout his career, Pickering has demonstrated a commitment to the reversal of a number of these rights for which AAUW members have fought for more than 50 years."
"In recent years, the [Fifth Circuit Court] has issued some of the most extreme civil rights rulings of any court. The confirmation of Judge Pickering will continue this downward spiral and will further erode the protection of civil and voting rights of minorities," commented Michael S. Rosier, the president of the National Bar Association (NBA), in a letter to Senator Patrick Leahy, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. The NBA, the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF), and the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force (NGLTF) are the most recent national organizations to oppose Pickering, joining the nearly thirty others led by the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights and the People for the American Way.
While new groups are joining the Pickering opposition, others are reaffirming their positions. The Congressional Black Caucus, who had voiced their reservations about the nominee before his February confirmation hearing, held a second press conference to restate their objections to Pickering the day before the Senate Judiciary Committee was scheduled to vote.
Members of the press haven't subdued their comments on Pickering either. Major newspapers are busy publishing editorial after editorial on the judge. "Judicial nominees should at least be made to explain their records, both on and off the bench. Pickering has a lot of explaining to do and hasn't done a very good job of it..." asserted Cragg Hines in the Houston Chronicle. The Detroit Free Press, the Los Angeles Times, the Boston Globe, and the New York Times have all printed editorials in recent weeks urging the Senate committee to vote the Pickering nomination down.
The Senate Judiciary Committee is now scheduled to vote on Pickering March 14. In the meantime, his Republican supporters will be working hard trying to convince the Committee to send the nomination to the Senate floor, where Pickering would have a greater chance of being confirmed. The Democrats currently hold the majority in the Senate Judiciary Committee, and all ten Democrats are expected to vote Pickering down.
