The McCain Mutiny--II
The Arizona Republican blocks Bush nominees and champions a liberal Democrat.
Thursday, July 11, 2002 12:01 a.m. EDT
President Bush is making the Democratic Senate's refusal to vote on many of his judicial nominees a major campaign issue this fall. Eminently qualified nominees such as Miguel Estrada and Mike McConnell were nominated 14 months ago and have yet to receive even a hearing. But a fellow Republican is undermining Mr. Bush's effort to showcase vacancies that the Judicial Conference of the United States calls "judicial emergencies." Sen. John McCain of Arizona is blocking action on even those few nominees the Democrats are willing to confirm.
Mr. McCain has placed a "personal privilege" hold on all Bush nominees--executive as well as judicial. He says he'll lift his hold only if Mr. Bush appoints Ellen Weintraub, an election lawyer, to a Democratic vacancy on the bipartisan Federal Election Commission. Mr. McCain is furious at the FEC for a series of 4-2 votes that he feels improperly interpret the McCain-Feingold law by giving candidates more "flexibility." Democrat Karl Sandstrom, whose term has expired, sided with the three Republican appointees against two Democratic commissioners. Ever since those votes Mr. McCain has joined Democrats in mau-mauing the commission, going so far as to threaten to introduce legislation abolishing it.
On June 24 Mr. McCain escalated the dispute by writing Senate leaders to warn he would hold up all Bush nominations until he had a written guarantee that President Bush would appoint Ms. Weintraub. The McCain letter hit the Senate like a bombshell because Democrats and Republicans were on the verge of concluding an agreement under which 16 judicial nominations would finally be voted on. Now the Senate is in "total gridlock," says Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky. "There won't be any nominations or confirmations any time soon," he predicted late last month.
Ms. Weintraub, a former Democratic staffer for the House Ethics Committee, has the fervent backing of congressional liberals. Sen. Paul Wellstone of Minnesota, perhaps the Senate's most liberal member, says "she will be a powerful, and needed, pro-reform force on the FEC." She is now a respected lawyer at the Washington firm of Perkins Coie, headed by Democratic superlawyer Bob Bauer. Mr. Bauer is a party animal. He helped craft the meritless racketeering complaint that the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee filed against House Majority Whip Tom DeLay's fund-raising operation. All this makes Ms. Weintraub a curious candidate for a Republican like Mr. McCain to champion so fervently.
There may be a little campaign-finance nepotism at work here. Peter Roff of United Press International reports that Ms. Weintraub is married to Bill Dauster, the legislative director for Sen. Russ Feingold, the Wisconsin Democrat of McCain-Feingold fame. If Ms. Weintraub joined the Federal Election Commission, she would be ruling on a major piece of legislation that her husband worked on. Fair or not, there would be calls for her to recuse herself on some votes just as there have been calls for Sen. Phil Gramm not to vote on commodity regulation issues because his wife, Wendy, chaired the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.
In any case, Sen. McCain's obstructionism doesn't make much practical sense. A White House official notes that since Ms. Weintraub's name was floated for the FEC only seven weeks ago, she is still in the "very early stages" of her background check. "There's no way that will be done until well into August, and then there are other matters that have to precede a formal appointment," he says. "Meanwhile does the entire confirmation process go on hold?" Ms. Weintraub's allies respond that the White House may be stalling her background check.
It's understandable that Sen. McCain is protective of his campaign finance legislation. And it's hardly surprising that he'd try to exert his influence on the FEC. But Roll Call, the newspaper of Capitol Hill, says it is flat-out wrong for him to be "punishing the judicial branch of government for the sins of one FEC commissioner." For him to hijack the presidential nominating process when several vacancies have been unfilled for over a year, and at a time when the federal government needs all hands on deck to fight a war on terrorism, carries traditional senatorial pique to new heights of self-aggrandizement.
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