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White House court pick clears Senate hurdle

Posted on: Thursday, 25 May 2006, 18:30 CDT

By Andy Sullivan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Senate cleared the way on Thursday for a vote to confirm White House aide Brett Kavanaugh as a federal appeals court judge despite concerns by some Democrats that he was too partisan and not experienced.

The U.S. Senate voted 67 to 30 to take up his nomination to the U.S. Appeals Court for the District of Columbia. The vote could occur Friday before the Senate adjourns for a weeklong break.

Many Democrats oppose the nomination of Kavanaugh, 41, who has worked as a lawyer in the White House since 2001, and before that helped investigate President Bill Clinton's relationship with Monica Lewinsky. But they could not muster the 60 votes needed to block him.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter said President George W. Bush had a right to nominate judicial candidates who share his outlook.

"It is hardly a surprise that Brett Kavanaugh is close to the president, because the president selects people in whom he has confidence and people who share his approach to jurisprudence," the Pennsylvania Republican said.

Republican activists hope the White House can fill vacant court seats with conservatives as a way to motivate the party's core voters ahead of the November congressional elections.

But Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, a Tennessee Republican, has been reluctant to rekindle a partisan standoff over courts that nearly immobilized the Senate last year, and has not set votes for other more controversial nominees.

"We seem to be back on an even keel. That's why I want to take the nominations one at a time," Frist said on Monday.

Democrats have called for one of those nominees, District Court Judge Terrence Boyle, to withdraw his nomination following news reports that he held stock in several companies that appeared before him in court, a potential violation federal ethics law.

The White House has continued to support Boyle, and 14 of his former law clerks have urged the Senate to vote.

South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham, one of 14 moderate senators who have the power to block nominees or allow them to go forward, declined to say whether he supported Boyle or another controversial nominee, Pentagon General Counsel William Haynes.

"We'll take 'em one at a time," Graham said.

Source: REUTERS

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