Is Ashcroft a racial and religious nut? He's a political opportunist - that's for sure. Do you think we should start a thread on Ashcroft? - Mephisto
Ashcroft's '99 Tactics In Spotlight
By Michael Grunwald
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, January 1, 2001; Page A01
Excertps from Washington Post
"Ashcroft is President-elect Bush's most controversial appointment so far, a stalwart Christian conservative who has fought gun control and abortion and accepted an honorary degree from Bob Jones University."
(Ashcroft blocks black judge from Federal Court)-Mephisto
Ashcroft's successful effort to block White was the most controversial chapter of his long political career, prompting furious debates about racism, politics and the law. His critics concede that he will probably be confirmed, but they are counting on contentious hearings first, with the White case at center stage.
The judge's allies warn that he might even agree to testify about his old nemesis, setting up a dramatic confrontation at the beginning of the Bush administration. "I talked to Ronnie the day Ashcroft was nominated, and he was heartbroken," said retiring Rep. William L. Clay (D-Mo.).
White was the first black judge appointed to Missouri's top court, and some Democrats have accused Ashcroft of racism for thwarting White's chance for a lifetime appointment on the federal bench. Ashcroft has fiercely defended his
integrity, saying he could not support a "dangerous" and "pro-criminal" jurist who habitually searches for technicalities that benefit cold-blooded killers.
In reality, a review of White's nomination -- the first defeated on the Senate floor since Robert H. Bork's – provides no evidence of racism by the man who would be America's top law enforcement officer, but strong evidence of bare-knuckled opportunism. ASHCROFT BADLY DISTORTED WHITE'S RECORD AT A TIME WHEN HE WAS LOOKING FOR LAW-AND-ORDER ISSUES FOR HIS REELECTION CAMPAIGN."
Ashcroft has said he fought White because the judge had shown a consistent bias against the death penalty and because Missouri's law enforcement community had "raised red flags" about his nomination. In fact, White has been only slightly more likely to reverse death sentences than colleagues appointed when Ashcroft was governor, and the state's law enforcement groups had widely divergent opinions of White. What's more, Ashcroft's aides raised those "red flags" themselves, alerting the groups about White's nomination. Clay even contends that Ashcroft once promised not to oppose White's nomination; Ashcroft aides insist he promised only not to bury it with procedural gimmicks, a promise he kept.
In any case, Ashcroft did not turn White's nomination into a referendum on the death penalty until he was locked in a reelection battle with Gov. Mel E. Carnahan (D-Mo.), who was under fire for commuting a killer's death sentence at the behest of the pope. At White's confirmation hearing in May 1998, transcripts show, Ashcroft asked the judge about gay rights, abortion and the role of the judiciary, but nothing about the death penalty. It was only after his staff discovered that White had been the lone justice to dissent from the execution of a notorious cop-killer -- an anguished dissent that Ashcroft mischaracterized in a series of public broadsides -- that Ashcroft began gunning for White.
In October 1999, Ashcroft's public and private pressure persuaded his senior colleague, Sen. Christopher S. Bond (R-Mo.), to withdraw his support for White. On the day of the vote, Ashcroft also delivered an impassioned plea to
the GOP caucus to sink the nomination. So even though several Republicans -- including Sens. Orrin G. Hatch (Utah), Arlen Specter (Pa.) and even Strom Thurmond (S.C.) -- had voted for it in committee, they all deferred to the
home-state senators on the floor, and White was defeated on a strict party-line vote.
As for Ashcroft, he lost his race to Carnahan, notwithstanding the extraordinary fact that the governor had died in a plane crash before the election. Ashcroft did not contest his bizarre defeat in court, so the governor's widow, Jean Carnahan, is heading to the Senate, which could begin hearings on Ashcroft's nomination this month. Jean Carnahan has not taken a position on Ashcroft yet, but she has hired outgoing Missouri Democratic Party Chairman Roy Temple -- who has accused Ashcroft of engineering "a political drive-by shooting" of White -- to be her chief of staff.
"This could be a bloodbath," a Democratic Senate aide said.
A Star in Missouri
Ashcroft is a son and grandson of Assemblies of God ministers, a Springfield native who attended Yale and met his wife at the University of Chicago Law School. He quickly became a GOP star in Missouri, serving as state auditor, attorney general, governor and senator. For religious reasons, he does not drink, smoke or dance -- he does play the piano and sing gospel hymns -- and he is best known as the Senate sponsor of a ban on late-term abortions.
White is a son of a postman, a child of inner-city St. Louis who worked as a janitor at a White Castle at 16 and had
an out-of-wedlock son at 19. He attended St. Louis Community College while holding down a post office job, then
attended college and law school in Missouri. He worked as a public defender, then served as a Democratic state
representative and city councilor before Carnahan made him a judge. As a committee chairman in the Legislature, he
was best known for sandbagging a major antiabortion bill.
In other words, these two men never shared much common ground.
When President Clinton nominated White to the federal court in 1997, Ashcroft was still considering a long-shot bid
for the presidency, and he was criticizing his fellow Republicans on the Judiciary Committee for rubber-stamping too many liberal judges. He personally held up the nomination of California attorney Margaret Morrow, who had broad bipartisan support, and voted against her purely on philosophical grounds -- even though he praised her integrity and intellect.
Nevertheless, Ashcroft initially kept quiet about White. In fact, at White's confirmation hearing, Clay announced that
Ashcroft had canvassed his own appointees who were serving with White and reported: "They all spoke very highly of
Ronnie White and suggested he would make an outstanding judge." Ashcroft did not reply.
Ashcroft did ask White whether he would uphold a ban on what critics call "partial birth" abortions if the Supreme Court ruled the procedure constitutional, and whether he intended to follow case law regarding gay rights. White said yes to both questions. Ashcroft also grilled White about his dissent in a court challenge to a random drug checkpoint; White said he was not opposed to checkpoints in general but was concerned about the way that specific one was set up. Hatch asked the only death-penalty question. White said he would have no trouble enforcing it.
Ashcroft voted against White's nomination in committee, but he did not raise a ruckus about it, and the nomination easily passed to the Senate floor. Bond, after all, had urged the committee to support White, describing him as "a man of the highest integrity and honor" who would interpret the law, not make the law. "There was bipartisan support for Ronnie White," recalled Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (Vt.), the ranking Democrat on the judiciary committee.
But that was before Ashcroft found out about State v. Johnson.
A Campaign Issue Is Born
On Dec. 9, 1991, Jimmy Johnson got in a fight with his third wife. A sheriff's deputy was dispatched to his home in
rural California, Mo. Johnson's wife didn't want to press charges. So the deputy turned to leave. And Johnson shot
him in the back.
Then Johnson went looking for the Montineau County sheriff, Kenny Jones. He wasn't home, but his wife was there
leading a prayer service, and Johnson shot her to death. Then Johnson ambushed another sheriff's deputy who came to
investigate. And another sheriff.
In the summer of 1999, as White's nomination was nearing a vote, Ashcroft's aides put together a list of cases in which
the judge had dissented from a ruling upholding a death sentence. His chief of staff noticed that one of them involved a man who had killed three law enforcement officers and a sheriff's wife. A campaign issue was born.
Ashcroft's aides now concede that the Johnson case seemed tailor-made for his race against Carnahan, but they say
his outrage was genuine. "We were all completely shocked," said Steve Hilton, Ashcroft's top political adviser.
"Nobody could believe Judge White had dissented."
Ashcroft later urged his Senate colleagues "to listen when the law enforcement community raises red flags." But his
aides now acknowledge that they initially spread the word about White to law enforcement groups. Jones passed a
petition around the Missouri Sheriffs Association convention in Kansas City. The Missouri Federation of Police Chiefs
came out against White, citing the Johnson dissent. And the National Sheriffs Association proclaimed that "this opinion
alone disqualifies Judge White from service in the federal courts."
"I've heard Ronnie White's a real fine man, and I don't doubt that," Jones said in an interview. "But he shouldn't be a federal judge. That's a slap in the face."
Ashcroft began accusing White of "reaching for loopholes to benefit criminals," denouncing his "very serious bias
against the death penalty." In fact, as Stuart Taylor wrote in the National Journal, White had upheld 70 percent of the
death sentences before him, not far off the 75 percent to 81 percent averages for the Ashcroft appointees on the
bench and well above the 53 percent average for the Ashcroft appointee he replaced. He voted to reverse 18 death
sentences, only three in solo dissents. In one of them, he called for a new trial for a black man whose judge had issued a news release contrasting "minorities" with "hardworking taxpayers"; Ashcroft told his colleagues the judge had merely criticized affirmative action.
Mostly, though, Ashcroft's case against White amounted to the case against Johnson -- which was, White wrote in his
dissent, "a very hard case."
Johnson had entered an insanity plea, saying he had no memory of the killings and that they had been triggered by
post-traumatic stress disorder dating from his service in Vietnam. His lawyer told the jury that Johnson had strung up a "perimeter" of rope and tin cans around his garage because he thought he was back in combat. But police witnesses
revealed in court that they had strung up the rope and tin cans while staking out his house after the killings.
The justices all agreed that the defense lawyer had made a serious mistake in not interviewing the officers before
unveiling his improbable scenario. But they disagreed about how relevant a mistake it was. White believed that the
bombshell had "utterly destroyed the credibility" of Johnson's insanity defense and that a jury might have reached a different ruling or a different sentence if they had never heard it. The other judges on the court believed the jury would have found Johnson guilty anyway, and denied his request for a new trial.
In any case, White emphasized in his dissent that his due process concerns about inadequate counsel were unrelated to
his views on executions: "If Mr. Johnson was in control of his faculties when he went on this murderous rampage, then
he assuredly deserves the death sentence he was given."
In fact, several less-Republican-leaning law enforcement groups in Missouri have voiced support for White. In a
sternly worded letter to the sheriffs, Thomas Mayer, president of the state Fraternal Order of Police, called White'srecord "far more supportive of the rights of victims than of the rights of criminals," complaining that "our nation has been deprived of an individual who surely would have proven to be an asset to the federal judiciary."
Charges of Racism
Johnson, it's worth noting, is white.
After the Senate rejected White's nomination, many critics attributed racial motivations to Ashcroft and his GOP allies, suggesting the judge should change his last name to "Not White Enough." Clay and Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) flatly called Ashcroft a racist. Carnahan said White's defeat had "racial overtones." Citing statistics about delayed nominations, Clinton called the vote "strong evidence for those who believe the Senate treats minority and women judiciary nominees unequally." At a speaking engagement, White said he thought the ruling would have a "chilling effect" on blacks seeking judgeships.
Ashcroft has called these charges wildly irresponsible, noting that he has supported 90 percent of the black nominees who have come up for a vote. He also pointed out that he signed laws in Missouri honoring Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday as a state holiday and Scott Joplin's house as a state historic site. "I will continue to support African Americans for the federal bench because America needs their strong minds," he said in a statement in October. "I will continue to draw my views from my faith, the melodies of Mahalia Jackson, the poetic beauty of James Weldon Johnson and the wise counsel of my father."
Ashcroft is taking heat for some seemingly pro-Confederate comments he made in the magazine Southern Partisan; he was also one of two members of a federal commission to refuse to sign a report on the plight of minorities. (He thought it was too negative.) But no one has produced evidence that racial animus had anything to do with his efforts to stop White. And in the heat of a close election, there was a much more obvious explanation.
"Pure politics," a GOP Senate aide said. "I guess it turned out to be bad politics."
washingtonpost.com |
