Vote on Pryor Nomination Scheduled for July 17
Feature Story by civilrights.org staff - 7/14/2003
After a one-week delay, the Senate Judiciary Committee is scheduled to vote July 17 on the controversial nomination of William Pryor to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit as opposition to the judicial nominee continues to mount.Although Judiciary Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) cited lack of time for a true debate, the postponement has raised speculation that Republicans fear Pryor may lose a committee vote. Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) is considered the swing vote on the committee, and he voiced concern over Pryor's record on civil rights during a hearing in June.
Over 150 civil rights, women's rights, gay rights, environmental, and religious organizations have come out in opposition to the nomination.
Wade Henderson, executive director of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, insists Pryor's litigation, choice of amicus briefs, and public speech "make clear that the ideological positions he has taken in these cases are his own."
As Alabama's Attorney General, Pryor pioneered the "states' rights" movement, often at odds with federal protections of civil rights and civil liberties.
Opponents point to cases such as United States v. Morrison, where Pryor represented the lone state to challenge the federal remedy for victims of sexual violence in the Violence Against Women Act. In the same case, 36 other states filed briefs strongly supporting the provision.
In Hope v. Pelzer, Pryor defended the practice of handcuffing Alabama prison inmates to outdoor posts in the hot sun without access to water as punishment for disruptive conduct while on chain gangs. The U.S. Supreme Court dismissed his argument, calling the practice "antithetical to human dignity" and chastising the act as "both degrading and dangerous."
Pryor also submitted an amicus brief in support of the Texas anti-sodomy law at issue in Lawrence v. Texas. In the brief, he maintains that any right to choose one's sexual partner must also "extend to activities like prostitution, adultery, necrophilia, bestiality, possession of child pornography, and even incest and pedophilia."
Ralph G. Neas, president of People For the American Way, called Pryor "one of the most dangerous judicial nominees of this administration that we've seen yet."
