From the WSJ Opinion Archives
THE NEXT JUSTICES
Capitol Shill
Liberal interest groups complain about Judge Roberts, but to no avail.
Yesterday, on the last day of the John Roberts hearings, Americans--or those few who tuned in--had the opportunity to see the corruption of the Senate confirmation process put on its very best face. We saw well-spoken, even well-meaning, advocates of this or that in their best clothes. Their aim was no different from that of all those petitioners who historically have chased high officeholders down streets or crowded the doorways of monumental buildings to press complaints and prayers for relief into the hands or pockets of the powerful. In our Congress they used to call it "to press claims" or "to importune the Members." In a word, lobbying.
There was, of course, a natural difference between the witnesses invited by Republicans to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee and those invited by the Democrats. Roberts supporters (some Democrats) had no complaints. For them, it was something of a love fest. Tactically, in fact, Republicans made sure that their witnesses were polished and well-credentialed--a former attorney general, Civil Rights Commission members, judges, successful lawyers--so as to contrast with the manner and purpose of liberal complainants.
Democratic witnesses, on the contrary, had much to say in words that were scary, or would have been if true. Their task was to suggest that Chief Justice Roberts would only make their client interests and all the country's ills much worse--in civil rights, environmental protection, employment law, women's rights, and so on. In effect, their simple message was that the president's nominee might not decide cases in their favor.
The stylized appearance of liberal special interest groups before the C-Span cameras disguises the enormous effort they have made behind the scenes. Since 1987, with the defeat of the Robert Bork nomination, Washington has seen a profitable cottage industry grow over the shaping of the judiciary to obtain particular results, and over the trashing of Republican-appointed judges in particular. True, during the Clinton years, conservatives tried to slow down Democratic judges. Then-Chairman Orrin Hatch of Utah went for a whole year without a single hearing, but ultimately the numbers showed that stalling met with little success. And President Clinton saw no real opposition to his two Supreme Court nominees, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer.
It is difficult for cynics to believe, but the relationship between liberals and conservatives and their respective senators is starkly distinct. The left deals with its senators in a hand-in-glove manner. The relationship on the right is arm's-length, defined by mutual suspicion. I know a little bit about this because as, I have previously written, I was one of the Senate staffers who read Democratic strategy papers that were freely accessible on my desktop when I worked on the Judiciary Committee. Some of the those memos have been published on www.fairjudiciary.com and republished in two recent books, Mark Levin's best-selling "Men In Black" and the new book by Jeff Lord, "The Borking Rebellion."
These published and many still unpublished documents in the hands of the Senate showed that Democratic senators obstructed Bush judicial confirmations over two years in conjunction with promises of campaign funding and election support, used Senate resources to raise campaign funds, used their rejection of judicial nominees as fund-raising inducements, and coordinated with litigants to guarantee results in pending litigation. Democratic senators and their staff even picked which judicial nominees would be rejected well in advance of any hearing and actually invited liberal special interests to vote on what nominees would get hearings and votes.
The documents also showed that Democratic senators imposed a special standard for a Hispanic judicial nominee, and had an improper design to block appellate court nominee Miguel Estrada in particular, because he was a Latino who could someday be elevated to the Supreme Court. The documents showed that Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois used his Committee staff to raise political funds. This helps to explain the way Mr. Durbin responded when the Hill newspaper reported yesterday that conservative leaders, responding to Democrats' continued insistence that Judge Roberts's most confidential Justice Department memos be made public, were demanding that the unpublished Memogate papers be disclosed. Mr. Durbin quickly fired off a letter to the Justice Department repeating the same charges that he employed almost two years ago to disguise his conduct and to distract Republican senators. Mr. Durbin even raised it during the Roberts hearings yesterday.
Fortunately, the law requires that these documents someday be made public, if they are not illegally destroyed first. Also fortunately, the influence of the special interest groups in the Roberts nominations has been nil. The filibuster that they once hoped to mount against the first Bush nominee is unavailable. Reporters covering the Roberts hearing tell me that loitering liberal leaders appeared crazed in spinning their stories. And more and more Americans know that what they have wrought has corrupted the Senate and made Democratic senators into mere shills.
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.
