Senate blocks Obama nominee who defended cop-killer...
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By Stephen Dinan The Washington Times Wednesday, March 5, 2014
 Debo Adegbile
The Senate filibustered President Obama’s nominee to lead the Justice Department’s civil rights division, with seven Democrats joining Republicans Wednesday in arguing his past history defending a convicted cop-killer made him the wrong man for the job.
The defeat of Debo P. Adegbile, who as a lawyer for the NAACP filed a brief arguing that former Black Panther Mumia Abu-Jamal’s murder trial was tainted by racism, is a major blow to Mr. Obama. It comes even after Democrats changed the rules last year to overcome filibusters with just 50 votes — but on Wednesday Majority Leader Harry Reid couldn’t even muster all of his own troops.
A furious Mr. Reid hinted that Republicans’ opposition was based on racism, pointing to to several other black nominees that GOP senators had opposed earlier. But in the case of Mr. Adegbile, his defense of Abu- Jamal was too much for even some Democrats.
The Senate blocked Mr. Adegbile on a 52-47 vote, with eight Democrats voting along with Republicans for the filibuster. One of those was Mr. Reid, who had to change to vote for the filibuster in order to be able to ask for an eventual re-vote — which he did.
“Maybe it’s time that America had a good discussion on civil rights,” Mr. Reid fumed.
Signifying the heft of the vote, Vice President Joseph R. Biden was in the chair, prepared to break a tie vote if it had come to that.
Mr. Adegbile is the first of Mr. Obama’s nominees to be blocked since Mr. Reid forced the filibuster rules change in November. Before that, it had taken 60 votes to overcome a filibuster — a threshold that Democrats couldn’t reach if all Republicans stuck together.
But after the rules change, almost all nominees now need just a majority vote to overcome a filibuster.
Under those new rules, Democrats have forced through more than 40 nominees, including several that would have been blocked under the old rules.
Mr. Adegbile, though, was too much for some Democrats, including Sen. Bob Casey, a Pennsylvania Democrat in whose state the Abu- Jamal murder case remains a hot topic.
Abu- Jamal was convicted of killing a Philadelphia police officer in 1981.
Mr. Adegbile said he oversaw an NAACP legal team that filed briefs in a Supreme Court appeal from Abu- Jamal. In those briefs the NAACP argued the judge’s jury instructions at trial were unclear, and that the jury was tainted.
His defenders said Mr. Adegbile was acting as a lawyer and providing a vigorous defense as the Constitution envisions, but opponents said the NAACP didn’t need to step into the case and that the organization’s arguments went too far.
The Fraternal Order of Police said it was opposing Mr. Adegbile’s nomination because of his involvement in the case.
Mr. Reid, though, said Republicans’ opposition was based on worries that Mr. Adegbile would be too effective at the Justice Department. He accused the GOP of trying to limit voting rights, and said Mr. Adegbile had distinguished himself on those issues.
Mr. Reid went further, listing a series of black nominees from Mr. Obama that he said Republicans had opposed, including Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Mel Watt, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives Director Todd Jones and Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson.
Of those, Mr. Johnson was easily confirmed to his post, while Mr. Jones managed to overcome a filibuster under the old rules. Mr. Watt, however, was only pushed through the chamber after Mr. Reid changed the filibuster rules.
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