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Frist seeks chirstain support for judicial nominees { April 25 2005 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/25/politics/25justice.htmlhttp://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/25/politics/25justice.html
April 25, 2005
Frist Seeks Christian Support to Stop Filibusters
By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK
LOUISVILLE, Ky., April 24 - In a Sunday telecast organized by Christian conservative groups to denounce the Democrats as "against people of faith" for blocking judicial nominees, Senator Bill Frist of Tennessee stepped up his threats to change Senate rules to circumvent those blockades while simultaneously calling for "more civility in political life."
In a short videotaped statement included in the telecast, which was called Justice Sunday and emanated from a packed Baptist mega-church here, Dr. Frist, the Senate majority leader, neither referred to religious faith nor addressed criticism that the event was inappropriately dragging religion into a partisan battle.
Instead, he focused on accusations by Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the Democratic leader, that Dr. Frist was a "radical Republican" for participating in the telecast, which aimed to build conservative Christian support for his threat to eliminate the filibuster of presidential nominees - a parliamentary tactic that allows at least 41 senators to reject a nominee by indefinitely forestalling a vote. Democrats, who hold 44 Senate seats, have vowed to virtually shut down Senate business if Dr. Frist follows through.
"I don't think it's radical to ask senators to vote," Dr. Frist said. "Now if Senator Reid continues to obstruct the process, we will consider what opponents call the 'nuclear option.' Only in the United States Senate could it be considered a devastating option to allow a vote. Most places call that democracy."
About 2,000 people packed into the Highview Baptist Church here for the telecast, and organizers said it was broadcast to several hundred churches by satellite, thousands of people over the Internet and 61 million households over Christian radio and television stations.
Liberal groups, meanwhile, stepped up their attacks on both Dr. Frist and the proposed rule change. About 1,200 liberal Christians gathered at a rally at a Presbyterian church here to protest what one speaker, the left-leaning evangelical Jim Wallis, called "a declaration of a religious war" and "an attempt to hijack religion."
Separately, MoveOn.org, a liberal advocacy group, said it was paying $700,000 for television commercials attacking the rule change, including some depicting a herd of Republican elephants trampling Congress. Its organizers said they would hold 120 rallies around the country on Wednesday, including one in Washington with a speech by former Vice President Al Gore. Mr. Gore's participation "elevates the fight beyond D.C.," said Ben Brandzel of MoveOn.org.
Marking a new stage in the confrontation, Dr. Frist singled out Judge Priscilla Owen, one of the blocked appeals court nominees, for praise in the telecast. The comments were a sign that Republicans have picked her to put forward for a vote to test the will of Democrats.
As the arguments on both sides heated up, senators scrambled to position themselves on middle ground. In the same telecast, Dr. Frist repudiated the comments of some in his party, including the House majority leader, Tom DeLay, about punishing judges whose rulings they consider out of line.
"When we think judicial decisions are outside mainstream American values, we will say so," he said. "But we must also be clear that the balance of power among all three branches requires respect - not retaliation. I won't go along with that."
Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council and an organizer of the telecast, declared at the outset, "We are not saying that people who disagree with us are not people of faith." Democrats, he argued, were forcing members of the judiciary to choose between public service and their conservative Christian views by denying them judgeships because of their stance on abortion or other social issues.
Other speakers in the telecast, however, took a different view from Dr. Frist. Dr. James Dobson, founder of the conservative Christian group Focus on the Family, whose political sister group was a sponsor of the event, defended Mr. DeLay and his attacks on the judiciary, calling the Supreme Court "unaccountable," "out of control," and a despotic oligarchy.
Dr. Dobson accused the justices of "a campaign to limit religious liberty" through 40 years of decisions limiting publicly supported expressions of religion. The founding fathers, he said, intended for the president and Congress to "check the judiciary and it hasn't done it," he said.
"You have a court that is out of control," Dr. Dobson said.
One Republican senator, however, distanced himself from the telecast as well as the attacks on the judiciary. Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, who supports changing the confirmation process, said in an interview on "Fox News Sunday" that the groups behind the telecast should "not to go down the road of saying that the Democratic senators are not people of faith or questioning their religious - that they're religious bigots."
"I don't think that helps the country," he said, "and I don't think that's fair."
Senate aides say they expect any confrontation to be postponed past the May recess next week. Dr. Frist has said he intends to offer a compromise, although it would still entail approving the blocked judges.
Senator Arlen Specter, the Pennsylvania Republican who is chairman of the Judiciary Committee, said Sunday that he was urging colleagues to look beyond party loyalty to resolve the impasse. "I think it is really necessary for Democrats not to follow a straight party line on voting for filibusters and Republicans not to follow a straight party line on voting for the so-called constitutional nuclear option," he said on CNN. "I think, if we voted our consciences, we wouldn't have filibusters, and we wouldn't have a nuclear option."
On the other side of the aisle, Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr., Democrat of Delaware, suggested that the parties might break their deadlock if Democrats agreed to confirm some of the blocked judges and Republicans agreed to drop the rest. "We'll let a number of them go through, the two most extreme not go through and put off this vote and compromise," Mr. Biden said in an interview with George Stephanopoulos on ABC. "The filibuster has always been available to stop extremes."
Still, Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican whip responsible for counting the votes of party members, said that enough Republicans would back the rule change to make it happen, which would require at least 50 of the 55 Republican senators. "That step will be taken sometime in the near future at the determination of the majority leader," he said in an interview on CBS. "We have the votes we need."
Albert Salvato contributed reporting for this article.
Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company
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