STATEMENT OF SENATOR DIANNE FEINSTEIN
BEFORE THE U.S. SENATE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE
OPPOSING THE NOMINATION OF JOHN ASHCROFT
TO BE
ATTORNEY GENERAL OF THE UNITED STATES
JANUARY 24, 2001
I truly believe that a President is entitled to his, or her, cabinet. I am aware that
virtually all of President Clinton’s cabinet was approved by voice vote, with one
exception, which was a roll call vote, and that nominee was overwhelmingly
approved.
However, the background record of this nominee is not mainstream on the key
issues. I know he is strong and tough on law and order issues. However, his
views on certain issues – civil rights and desegregation, a woman’s right to
choose and guns – make him an enormously divisive and polarizing figure.
This record can best be characterized as ultra-right wing. That is not where most
of the people in this nation are.
Senator Ashcroft’s commitment to enforce the law in view of the extremeness of
his record, as well as, on occasion, the harshness of his rhetoric, makes it difficult
to believe that he can, in fact, fairly and aggressively enforce laws he deeply
believes are wrong.
When Senator John Ashcroft opposed Bill Lann Lee’s nomination to head the Civil
Rights Division at the Department of Justice, he argued that Lee was “an advocate
who is willing to pursue an objective and to carry it with the kind of intensity that
belongs to advocacy, but not with the kind of balance that belongs to
administration ... his pursuit of specific objectives that are important to him limit
his capacity to have the balanced view of making the judgments that will be
necessary for the person who runs [the Civil Rights] Division.”
If the Senator’s own standard is applied to this nomination, he would not be
confirmed.
Last week, this Committee held four days of hearings into the nomination of
Senator Ashcroft. During that time, we witnessed a man who had undergone a
major transformation on many key issues of importance to the people of my State
and the nation. The question that each Senator must now ask, is whether that
transformation is plausible after more than 25 years of advocating the other side.
On a woman’s right to choose, for example, the new John Ashcroft would have us
believe that he fully accepts Roe v. Wade as the law of the land, and he will do
nothing to try to overturn it. He would fully fund task forces to protect women as they
enter abortion clinics, and stated firmly that “no woman should fear being
threatened or coerced in seeking constitutionally protected health services.”
Contrast that with the John Ashcroft of the past 25 years, who has long argued that
there is no constitutional right to abortion at all, that Roe v. Wade was wrongly
decided, and in 1998 wrote that “If I had the opportunity to pass but a single law, I
would...ban every abortion except those medically necessary to save the life of the
mother.” This John Ashcroft supported a constitutional amendment to ban virtually
all abortions, even in the cases of rape and incest - an amendment that would
also likely ban some of the most common forms of birth control, including the pill
and the IUD.
The John Ashcroft of 25 years once stated, “Battles (for the unborn) are being
waged in courtrooms and state legislatures all over the country. We need every
arm, every shoulder, and every hand we can find. I urge you to enlist yourself in that
fight.” The new John Ashcroft claims to have laid down his arms entirely.
On gun control, the new John Ashcroft says he supports background checks at
gun shows, says that he voted to deny the right to bear arms to domestic violence
offenders, and says he would support re-authorizing the assault weapons ban
when it expires in 2004, although he has called it “wrong-headed.”
The old John Ashcroft, on the other hand, voted against mandatory background
checks at gun shows, trigger locks on guns sold, and a ban on large capacity
ammunition magazines. He supported a concealed weapons law that would allow
the people of Missouri to carry a concealed firearm into a grocery store, a church,
or on school grounds or on a school bus, superceding the Federal Gun Free
Schools Act. He was, and still may be, an active member of the National Rifle
Association.
On civil rights, the old John Ashcroft strenuously fought a desegregation plan in
Missouri. In fact, the judge in the case stated that Attorney General Ashcroft, “as a
matter of deliberate policy, decided to defy the authority of this court.”
The old John Ashcroft spoke at Bob Jones University, that to this day remains
highly questionable for its religious and racial bias; at the hearing he demurred
when Senator Biden urged him to return the honorary degree and did not rule out
returning to the college in the future.
And the old John Ashcroft, in stating his reasons for voting against James Hormel
as Ambassador for Luxemburg, stated that Hormel had “actively supported the gay
lifestyle,” and that a person’s sexual conduct is “within what could be considered
and what is eligible for consideration” for ambassadorial nominees.
Yet the new John Ashcroft promises never to discriminate against gays or
lesbians for employment and said the reason for voting against Ambassador
Hormel was because he knew him personally. Mr. Hormel called to tell me that he
not only does not know Mr. Ashcroft, but that the Senator had refused to meet with
him prior to his confirmation.
For over a quarter-century of public life, John Ashcroft has established a record of
right-wing conservatism, and of views far to the right of the average American, and
even of many in his own party. Senator Ashcroft has spent a career fighting against
a woman’s right to choose. He obstructed the nominations of several women and
minority candidates to the federal bench.
Senator Ashcroft said just two short years ago that ‘There are voices in the
Republican Party today who preach pragmatism, who champion conciliation, who
counsel compromise. I stand here today to reject those deceptions. If ever there
was a time to unfurl the banner of unabashed conservatism, it is now.”
In 1997, Senator Ashcroft remarked that “People’s lives and fortunes [have] been
relinquished to renegade judges – a robed, contemptuous intellectual elite.” He
continued that “Judicial despotism. . .stands like a behemoth over this great land.”
In a speech entitled “Courting Disaster: Judicial Despotism in the Age of Russell
Clark,” Senator Ashcroft reveals deep and antagonistic feelings toward the courts
of our country with this sentence:
“Can it be said that the ‘people govern?’ Can it still be said that citizens control that
which matters most? Or have people’s lives and fortunes been relinquished to
renegade judges – a robed contemptuous, intellectual elite that has turned the
courts into ‘nurseries of vice and the ban of liberty?’”
And in the case of Missouri Supreme Court Justice Ronnie White’s nomination to
the federal bench, Senator Ashcroft was responsible for a dark day in the Senate.
When a home-state Senator objects to a nominee, it is very unlikely that the
nomination will go forward. But instead of quietly objecting early on and allowing
White to withdraw his nomination with dignity if he so wished, John Ashcroft waited
until the nominee reached the floor of the Senate - after waiting for two full years –
to derail the nomination and humiliate the nominee by stating, “We do not need
judges with a tremendous bent toward criminal activity.”
Whatever Senator Ashcroft’s problem with Ronnie White, there was no need to
destroy White’s reputation on the floor of the Senate, with no warning and no
chance for Judge White to either defend himself or withdraw. This one act has
become a stumbling block to my support, which I have not been able to get
around. It says to me that it was done for political purposes.
Taken as a whole, Senator Ashcroft’s positions and statements, in my view, do not
unite, but rather divide. They send strong signals to the dispossessed, the racial
minorities of our country, and particularly to all women who have fought long and
hard for reproductive freedom that this Attorney General will not be supportive of
laws for which they fought, no matter what he has said in the past weeks.
How can our citizens feel that this man will stand up for them when their civil rights
are violated? How can the left out, the rape victim who needs an abortion have faith
that this man would enforce their rights?
In the end, every Senator must live with his or her own vote, and for this Senator,
that vote will be “no.”
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