Advise And Consent

15 May 2005 |permalink | email article

Senate Democrats and Republicans go to battle stations this week. One issue is the fight over several of President Bush’s judicial nominees; the other is confirmation of John C. Bolton as U.N. ambassador. The showdowns involve a blend of political and constitutional issues, the powers of the Senate to advise and consent on the president’s nominees and the ability of minority Democrats to influence the outcome.

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist will seek up or down confirmation of two of Bush’s most conservative judicial nominees to federal appellate courts, blocked by Democrats who reject the leader’s move and consider both of them extremists. Dr. Frist’s office declined to say which nominee he would seek a vote on first—California Supreme Court Justice Janice Rogers Brown, or Texas Supreme Court Justice Priscilla R. Owen. Energized Christian evangelical leaders have falsely accused Democrats as being “against people of faith” for opposing the confirmations. (Body Politic, April 16)

Frist and Democratic Leader Harry Reid of Nevada have talked compromise, but none has surfaced. Failing an agreement, Frist will seek a ruling to limit the amount of time Democrats could debate the challenged nominees. After the ruling, Frist said he would “ensure that every senator has the opportunity to decide whether to restore the 214-year practice of up-or-down votes on judicial nominees, or to enshrine a new vote by filibuster.”  The filibuster is a parliamentary technique allowing unlimited debate. Ending it requires 60 votes in the 100-seat chamber; winning confirmation requires a simple majority of 51.

The argument that Sen. Robert D. Byrd of W.Va. made to Frist against the up-or-down vote is compelling: “Here is my guide, the Constitution of the United States. What does it say? Does it say that each nominee shall have an up-or-down vote? Does it say that?” Frist conceded it did not but insisted that the “advise and consent” provision of the Constitution suggested the Senate should conduct a confirmation vote on each of the president’s nominees. Frist’s presidential ambitions, hurt by his virtual diagnosis of Terri Schiavo without examining her - he’s a heart surgeon, not a neurologist - face an early test.

The real drama, with international ramifications, centers on the Bolton nomination, sent to the full Senate by the Foreign Relations Committee without a recommendation for approval after the Republicans failed to maximize their vote. This is only the third time in 22 years that the committee has so acted. The Los Angeles Times’ Ronald Brownstein aptly wrote (March 13) that “all the polarizing political dynamics of Bush’s presidency (are) condensed into a single illuminating episode” with the committee vote. It is, he suggested, an example of Bush’s willingness “to live on the edge. . . to pursue ambitious changes that sharply divide the country.” 

In selecting Bolton, a harsh critic of the U.N., whose arms control performance at State has shocked Democrats and many Republicans who support an international approach to foreign policy, Bush has again ratified his selective, “in your face” approach to diplomacy - ignoring human rights abuses in “democracies” like Saudi Arabia and Egypt. And failing to address the fast-breaking abuses in Uzbekistan, our newest ally in the war on terror.

Because of the independent stand by GOP Sen. George Voinovich of Ohio, Bolton’s two-month-old nomination has been forced into overtime and national scrutiny. His sponsor, Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice, still refuses to release certain classified intelligence documents because they would have a “chilling effect” on debates within the administration. That’s why California Sen. Barbara Boxer has put an indefinite hold on the nomination, meaning a quick confirmation is not necessarily assured.

Mainstream media wisdom is that Bolton will be confirmed; the White House believes party loyalty ices the end game. I want to wait until after the votes of seven Republican senators—Snowe of Maine, Chafee of Rhode Island, Collins of Maine, Specter of Pennsylvania, McCain of Arizona, Hagel of Nebraska and Voinovich - are counted.


A Vatican Yankee:

Benedict XVI taps San Francisco Archbishop Willam J. Levada to succeed him as the guardian of church doctrine. It makes the fourth generation Californian, a longtime friend and colleague, the highest ranking American ever at the Vatican. Levada is the first American to run the powerful and contentious Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. He apprenticed with that body which then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger ran for over two decades. Considered by liberals to be theological hard-liner, he also upset many conservatives in liberal San Francisco by not being more outspoken about homosexuals and gay marriage.

Levada will be a staunch defender of orthodoxy on many social issues confronting the church, including abortion, euthanasia, homosexuality and the role of women. In the 1990s his antifeminist bias as part of a Vatican committee that stripped gender-inclusive language from a lectionary proposed by the American Bishops’ Conference, the New York Times reported (May 13), sends a bad signal to many restive U.S. Catholics, and women everywhere.

Whether the cardinal in waiting has any moderate or pragmatic streak, as some observers suggest, may soon become apparent:

1.  How will he handle clerical abuse in his new responsibility of reviewing all reports forwarded from bishops around the world - with special focus on the U.S.? He’s been criticized by clerical sex-abuse victims for being slow to act in response to molestation concerns and failing to remove some priests from active ministry in San Francisco and keeping church documents about accused priests secret - a legal issue in the Los Angeles Archdiocese. But an undaunted Levada said his experience with the sex scandals may be one reason that the pope chose him. (It is known that when Ratzinger held the position, he was concerned by information shared with him about the U.S. scandal by an independent commission of American lay persons, but held from him by bishops.)

2.  The recent case of the resignation under pressure of Father Thomas Reese, S.J., the respected editor of the Jesuit magazine America, raises this question: Will Levada continue Ratzinger’s hardline censorship policy and continue to reign in any independent Catholic publication’s balanced treatment of theological dialogue about sensitive church issues of concern to the faithful? (In 1997 John Paul II named an Italian bishop to oversee all Italian publications of the Pauline Fathers, including a magazine which had a circulation of over 1 million. In 2002, also under Ratzinger’s watch, U.S. Catholic, a Chicago-based Claretian magazine, ran clarifications of church teaching on women’s ordination at the request of the doctrinal office.)       

Labor’s Loss:

The maximum tribute to the memory of Los Angeles County AFL-CIO leader Miguel Contreras at his funeral last week was the presence of Big Labor: John Sweeney, president of the AFL-CIO, and four national union presidents—Andrew Stern of the 1.8 million-member Service Employees International Union, John Wilhelm and Bruce Raynor of the recently merged union Unite Here and the United Farmer Workers’ Arturo Rodriguez.

Their presence foreshadows the epic battle shaping up between Sweeney and several major dissident union presidents when the AFL-CIO meets in Chicago in July. The issue is falling labor membership and the loss of union clout. The dissidents have demanded that their members’ names be removed from the AFL-CIO’s master list of 13 million households - a big weapon in impacting political campaigns, grass-roots lobbying and influencing legislation in Congress.

Wilhelm, who runs a division of Unite Here, is considering a challenge to Sweeney. SEIU President Stern has threatened to pull out of the AFL-CIO unless major policy and program changes are made. The top Democratic leadership in Congress have voiced private concern about the split of a major constituency group and how 2006 Congressional elections may be impacted. Is DNC Chairman Howard Dean, yet to show any serious clout, capable of forging a compromise? Don’t bet on it. 

Read ‘em And Weep

“None of these folks get it, and none of them ever will.”   

- American Conservative Union President David Keene, attacking the media at a testimonial dinner given by rabid conservatives for embattled House majority leader Tom DeLay. Those singled out for hissing included The Washington Post, Dan Rather, Frank Rich and Bob Woodward.

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