"Follow the Money"
Former GOP Staff Attorney Says 'Profit Motive' Drives Judiciary Battles
By Jeff Johnson
CNSNews.com Senior Staff Writer
February 20, 2004
(Editor's Note: Adds comments from the National Abortion Federation.)
(CNSNews.com) - The former Republican counsel to the Senate Judiciary Committee has told CNSNews.com that the quest for money, more than liberal political ideology, is what drives the most effective special interest groups - abortion lobbyists, trial lawyers and labor unions - fighting against President Bush's conservative judicial nominees.
"What would be truly shocking to the American people is the profit motive that is involved," Manuel Miranda said.
Miranda resigned under pressure from Democrats angry that he read memos on a shared government computer detailing Democratic senators' and liberal activists' plans to derail those nominees.
He told CNSNews.com Wednesday - during the first in-depth interview since his resignation - that the abortion industry and trial lawyers are behind the most powerful efforts to keep conservative jurists off the federal bench.
Miranda said many Americans would be stunned to learn what he claimed was the driving force behind the groups' efforts.
Many prominent conservatives believe that philosophical and moral differences of opinion are the primary reason liberals try to keep conservative nominees from being confirmed to the federal bench. But Miranda said those are actually secondary incentives.
"It isn't just about 'abortion rights,' the battle is about abortion profits," Miranda explained. "The axis of profits that undergirds the fight in the Judiciary Committee is the axis between trial lawyers - who want particular types of judges who rule in particular ways on their cases - and, not the 'abortion rights' lobby, but the abortion clinics ' lobby.
"The 'abortion rights' lobby is just a front for something much worse," Miranda continued, "which is the abortion clinics' lobby, represented by the National Abortion Federation."
Miranda claimed abortion clinics make, on average, $1,000 profit for every abortion they perform.
"That's where the money is," Miranda insisted. "That's what is really happening here."
In an emailed response to CNSNews.com's request for an interview for this article, National Abortion Federation President and CEO Vicki Saporta did not address Miranda's allegations.
"The battle over judicial nominees is about preserving a fair and balanced judiciary that will protect the rights and freedoms that mainstream Americans hold dear," Saporta wrote.
Another common misconception, Miranda said, is that Republicans have greater access to financial resources to fight such battles.
"There is an appearance that 'big money' is not behind the Democratic Party and that is absolutely false," Miranda said.
"The abortion clinics' lobby is an industry as large as any industry that lobbies in Washington and, when combined with the single-mindedness of trial lawyers in trying to obtain a particular kind of judge, the enormity of the money that is behind the Democratic push is astounding and shocking," he added.
Carlton Carl, spokesman for the Association of Trial Lawyers of America (ATLA), disputed Miranda's accusation Thursday.
"The Association of Trial Lawyers of America has never been involved in federal judicial nominations or confirmation fights, and to suggest otherwise is a blatant lie," Carl said.
Upon clarification that Miranda's comments referred to "trial lawyers" in general, not ATLA specifically, Carl responded, "I believe, in the United States of America, individuals can do what they want in terms of contacting their members of Congress to achieve whatever outcome they desire."
Asked about whether individual trial lawyers and firms might have contributed to a particular politician or party in an attempt to influence the judicial confirmation process, Carl responded that "the money devoted to attempting to influence the judicial process, as well as the political process, by any group pales in comparison to that of corporate wrongdoers."
But according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a non-profit organization that tracks political contributions, ATLA and its members rank fourth on the list of the top 100 political contributors since 1989. Since then, ATLA and its members have given $22,413,466 in political contributions, 85 percent of it to Democrats and 11 percent to Republicans.
With the exception of the National Association of Realtors, which comes in at number two, and Phillip Morris at number eight, ATLA's companions among the top nine contributors are government employees and other labor unions. Altogether, they contributed 92 percent of a combined $154.3 million to Democrats and only five percent of the total to Republicans.
"When you combine it then with the interests of the labor movement," Miranda observed, "then you start seeing that the effort to control the judiciary is really an enormous and well orchestrated profit-making business."
Miranda said the difference between the way many Republicans perceive the judicial confirmation battles and the reality of those battles "boggles the mind."
"The reason conservatives are upset with Republicans currently and normally," Miranda concluded, "is that they give the appearance of not knowing that this is a war and not a garden party."
(Editor's note: During CNSNews.com's interview with Manuel Miranda, he explained why he believes he and other Republican staffers were legally, morally and ethically authorized to read Democrats' strategy memos on the judicial confirmation process. Those memos, Miranda charged, contain evidence of criminal wrongdoing on the part of Senate Judiciary Committee Democrats. A second article, based on that portion of the interview, will be published Monday, Feb. 23.) |
