Vote on Pryor Nomination Scheduled for July 23
Feature Story by civilrights.org staff - 7/18/2003
The Senate Judiciary Committee vote on William Pryor's nomination to the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals has been rescheduled for July 23 as Democrats pursue an investigation into the judicial nominee's integrity. This is the second delay in as many weeks, the first resulting from what Chairman Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) cited as a lack of time for true debate.During a June hearing, Pryor told senators on the committee that, during his work with the Republican Attorneys General Association (RAGA), he was unaware of ever soliciting from businesses that would fall under his jurisdiction as Alabama Attorney General. Documents have since come to light suggesting Pryor did, in fact, make fund-raising calls to such corporations and casting doubt on other statements he made regarding RAGA.
This investigation comes as opposition to the nominee continues to mount. 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."
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."
