Behind Schumer's Ill Humor
The Democrats are divided. The Republicans might have been.
BY MANUEL MIRANDA
Wednesday, August 3, 2005 12:01 a.m. EDT
A favorite quip in the U.S. Capitol is that the most dangerous place to stand is between Sen. Charles Schumer and a microphone. So when New York's senior senator rose to the podium at the National Press Club last week to share his views on Judge John Roberts's prospects to sit on the Supreme Court, he was both unimpeded and undaunted by the noticeably small turnout. While Mr. Schumer claimed the limelight yet again, his colleagues in the Senate were wondering whether they would follow him yet again.
The left is divided: "Liberal interest groups could not have imagined that they'd be on the outside looking in during what was supposed to be a battle over President George W. Bush's first Supreme Court nominee," Legal Times, a Washington weekly for lawyers, reported last week. "But that's what has essentially happened, as Senate Democrats chart a more moderate course without them."
Legal Times quoted an unnamed Democratic staffer who asked, "Do we have to follow Nan Aron off a cliff?" Ms. Aron is the veteran borker who heads up the trial lawyer front group Alliance for Justice, and one of Mr. Schumer's muses.
Democrats have reason to be afraid of heights. Since Mr. Schumer and lobbyists like Ms. Aron first sought to legitimize ideological litmus tests in the 107th Congress and judicial filibusters in the 108th, Democrats have lost Senate seats in eight states: Florida, Georgia (twice), Louisiana, Minnesota, Missouri, North Carolina, South Carolina and South Dakota. In each contest, the judicial nominations issue gave Republicans the small margin of victory by which elections are won. (The GOP lost three seats, in Arkansas, Colorado and Illinois, for a net gain of six.)
To paraphrase the old spiritual, there but for grace go conservatives. In replacing Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, the White House might well have divided conservatives with real consequences to the elections of 2006 and 2008.
Such divisions among conservatives, lasting and short-lived, have happened before. When I worked for Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah, a phone call to a national pro-life leader got me an unexpected lecture about how my boss had split the pro-life movement and it had yet to recover. I had wondered why at conservative meetings someone always had to vouch for me after I announced I worked for Mr. Hatch.
In an April 2004 column, conservative coalition builder Paul Weyrich described the incident:
From 1974 on, following the Supreme Court's Roe v. Wade decision the year earlier, the pro-life movement had rallied around a Constitutional amendment sponsored by Rep. Henry Hyde (R-IL) in the House and Sen. Jesse Helms (R-NC) in the Senate. But by coming up with an amendment of his own, Hatch caused people and groups to take up sides against each other. The movement never fully recovered from that split.
When the first President Bush raised taxes and named David Souter to the high court, conservatives responded by staying home when he asked for their vote. Many openly criticized him.
While the White House would have borne principal responsibility had the president picked another Souter, conservative leaders were ready to help in the mischief. The Washington Post's Peter Baker recorded just how it could have started.
About 9 o'clock [on the morning of the Roberts announcement], representatives of conservative groups picked up their telephones to log into a strategy conference call. One participant announced with the air of certainty that the choice seemed to be [Judge Edith Brown] Clement, implying he had heard from the White House, according to another person on the call, who would not identify the speaker. When others on the call grumbled because of her uncertain conservative pedigree, the speaker scolded the group, saying it was time to rally around the president's choice.
What American boy does not want to grow up to rally around the president? The game "defend the castle" is perfect training. Regardless of Judge Clement's fine qualities, had the childish game been played on a misguided nomination, the consequences would have far outweighed the benefit to the career ambitions or the best intentions of the unnamed conference-call leader.
More important, it does not serve their client if the president's aides surround themselves either with "yes" men or leaders they position to help deliver the base even after a bad Supreme Court pick. Such sycophancy can lead the president to make the wrong choice next time. It would also split the conservative movement with dire results. This time conservatives dodged a bullet.
Mr. Miranda, former counsel to Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, is founder and chairman of the Third Branch Conference, a coalition of grassroots organizations following judicial issues. His column appears on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.
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