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Bush Gets Democrats' Picks for Supreme Court Slot

Posted on: Thursday, 14 July 2005, 12:00 CDT

In their first meeting with President Bush over the Supreme Court vacancy, Democrats went so far as to offer individual names for consideration while senators of both parties encouraged the president to look beyond the federal judiciary for candidates.

"It would be good to have some diversity," said Senator Arlen Specter, the Pennsylvania Republican who is chairman of the Judiciary Committee. He said a nominee from outside the realm of the federal courts could bring new points of view and broader experience to the Supreme Court.

The breakfast meeting on Tuesday marked a new phase in the politically charged effort to fill the first Supreme Court vacancy in more than a decade, allowing direct talks between the president and the lawmakers over the nomination and the schedule for potentially combative hearings.

Besides Specter, the president met with Senator Bill Frist, the majority leader; Senator Harry Reid, the Democratic leader; and Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont, the senior Democrat on the Judiciary panel. Vice President Dick Cheney and White House chief of staff Andrew Card Jr. also attended.

Despite calls by Democrats for Bush to identify some of the people on his shortlist, lawmakers and other officials said Bush did not reveal any of his favorites and spent much of the private White House session listening to the views of the senators on a replacement for Justice Sandra Day O'Connor.

"They've got strong opinions, and I wanted to hear them," Bush told reporters after the meeting, which ran roughly an hour. "And they have shared some opinions with me."

The president received a long-distance opinion from a familiar source, Laura Bush. "I would really like for him to name another woman," the first lady, who was traveling in South Africa, said in a television interview.

Democrats were said to have broached the names of at least three judges of Hispanic background who they believed had a strong chance of being approved without a tumultuous confirmation fight: Judge Sonia Sotomayor of the U.S. 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals, Judge Edward Prado of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, and Judge Ricardo Hinojosa of U.S. District Court in Texas. Leahy would not confirm that those names were mentioned, but said he saw them as strong candidates.

The judges have not been among the top possible nominees mentioned by Republican allies of the White House.

In more general terms, Reid and Leahy also sought to discourage the president from naming an extremely conservative candidate who would engender strong opposition from Democrats and provoke a bitter confirmation fight.

"We're at a time in the history of this country where we've had enough discussion, debate and contention on judges," Reid said. While Democrats were clamoring for a nominee that could draw broad support, a leading conservative group came out against the idea of a "consensus" pick.

"In this case, 'consensus' would mean compromise," said an e- mail message distributed Tuesday by Jay Sekulow, chief counsel for the American Center for Law and Justice and one of four conservative leaders who recently met with Card to discuss support for the president's eventual nominee. Sekulow encouraged recipients to sign an Internet petition against a consensus candidate.

Frist and other Republicans praised the White House for its efforts to include Democrats in its search, but they said senators should not expect to wield veto power over the nomination. "I am concerned that no amount of consultation will be sufficient for a few of our colleagues," Frist said. "And I say that because co- nomination rather than consultation may be their ultimate goal."

While Democrats continued to credit the president for his efforts at reaching out, there were strong indications they would not be satisfied if they did not have a chance to weigh in on individuals before Bush moves ahead. They point to past instances where senators had influence on the eventual nomination, such as exchanges between President Bill Clinton and Senator Orrin Hatch of Utah, who was the senior Republican on the Judiciary Committee when Clinton made his court nominations.

"The way consultation has accurately, has successfully, worked in the past is for the president to quietly, privately offer some of the names he's considering to those on both sides of the aisle and get opinions about those names," said Senator Charles Schumer of New York, a Democrat.

Participants at the White House meeting said considerable time was devoted to the issue of scheduling, with senators now anticipating September confirmation hearings after the monthlong August recess.

Source: International Herald Tribune

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