This weekend, I had some amount of trouble coming up with a point of discussion for this week's commentary. Thankfully, however, the other student newspaper bailed me out.
An opinion column written by Anthony Carver, which appeared in Monday's edition, lambasted Democratic senators for their filibuster of the appointment of Miguel Estrada to the Washington D.C. Court of Appeals, which sits just below the Supreme Court in terms of prestige and power. He had three main complaints--that the filibuster exposes the Democrats' true feelings about minorities, that the filibuster means to block a pro-life nominee and that the filibuster sets a bad precedent.
That was awfully nice of Anthony. He gave me three big hanging curveballs to drive to the fence.
Let us turn to easy pitch number one: the ethnicity argument. Look--if there is any organization in the country that has absolutely nothing to say on matters of ethnicity, it is the Republican Party. With the pining of Sen. Trent Lott, R-Miss., for the good old days of segregation; the desire of Gov. Sonny Perdue, R-Ga., to put the Stars and Bars back on Georgia's state flag; the declaration of Rep. Howard Coble, R-N.C., that the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II was \appropriate;"" the assertion of Rep. Sue Myrick, R-N.C., that the government should ""look at who runs all the convenience stores across the country"" for possible threats to homeland security--and the Party's effective silence on these actions, and others, unless and until public pressure forces a mild rebuke--it becomes clear that the GOP has a blind spot on multiculturalism. And now they are using Estrada as a fig leaf.
That is not going to work. If Republicans really want to be taken seriously on matters of racial discrimination, they would pay appropriate attention to the racist comments--not days or weeks after they are made, but instantaneously. They would encourage President Bush to shelve an amicus brief against the University of Michigan's admissions policies or, at the very least, to stop referring to them as quota systems. And they would join me in calling for the defeat of Assembly Bill 111, a Republican proposal that would require voters to show photo identification before being allowed to register at the polls and would eliminate the ability of voters to ""vouch"" for a registrant's residence--both of which would serve to suppress participation among minorities (and, incidentally, among college students).
Then there is the abortion argument. It is a somewhat curious argument to make, since Democratic senators--whether they were in the majority or the minority--have allowed scores of Bush's pro-life nominees to pass through the confirmation process. But Estrada, oddly enough, is not an avowed opponent of Roe v. Wade. To the contrary, Estrada said at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing last September that Roe is ""settled law"" and that he would apply it. Beyond that, he refused to respond to questions concerning his personal viewpoints on Roe.
And this goes to a broader point: he has refused to answer similar questions on cases touching on a whole host of other issues which the D.C. Circuit will inevitably address in the coming decades--questions which other judicial nominees have openly addressed in their testimonies to the committee. So Democrats are not opposing Estrada's installation on the D.C. Circuit because he is pro-life, but because he is dancing around legitimate questions. And they have a right to be concerned. Think about it: If you were to list the personal characteristics you are looking for in a federal judge, would ""demonstrated ability to evade tough questions"" top your list?
And finally, there is the ""setting a bad precedent"" critique, to which I simply say, ""too late."" During the Clinton administration, dozens of qualified judicial nominees died in the Judiciary Committee without a hearing or vote. And now we have Republican senators--some of whom were directly responsible for blocking Clinton appointments left and right--complaining about the Democrats' obstructionist tactics. If that sounds somewhat hypocritical to you, you are not alone.
To be sure, the Democrats do not have a clean sheet on hypocrisy; a promise to not engage in judicial filibusters made by Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., has gone by the boards. However, this does not absolve the Republicans of responsibility for their hypocrisy. Nor does it excuse their support of an evasive nominee or their use of the nominee's background as a shield against legitimate criticisms of their party's sorry record on race relations.
