| The Global Freedom Institute |
| John Ashcroft: Simply a test. Why has John Ashcroft become such a well known name recently? Yes, he was known before he was nominated for Attorney General, but his name seems to be everywhere after this nomination. Has he done so much that he will go down in history as someone worthy of note? He was a Missouri Attorney General, a Senator, and even someone who lost to a dead man in an election. However, before this nomination, he was known, but not worthy of headlines across the country daily. Why has he been such a focus recently? Ashcroft was nominated for the position of Attorney General, the leading law enforcer in the country. However, the average citizen would be hard pressed to name more than a handful of Attorney Generals that they have not been alive for, and probably don�t remember many of those. Janet Reno made headlines due to the federal actions at Waco, Elian Gonzales, and the attacks from the right for not going after President Clinton and Vice-President Gore on issues the right would have liked her to go after. Bobby Kennedy went after the mob, but later ran for the Democratic Presidential nomination before being assassinated. Other than that, the Attorney General has very little notoriety in terms of the average American. So what makes John Ashcroft as Attorney General so significant? Ashcroft is a religious conservative. He has strong views against abortion, affirmative action and for religion, three things that seem to be at the top of the republican agenda recently. In the last few years, republicans have tried to put the Ten Commandments in schools, pushed for vouchers that would go to religious schools, and pushed the lack of �morality� in America. Few moments were more pronounced in the presidential debates than the Bush/Gore exchange over affirmative action vs. affirmative access. Affirmative action has been under attack from republicans nationwide. They have tried to eliminate partial birth abortion and have talked about the eventual overturning of Roe v Wade to eliminate abortions in America, as well as cut off American funding for international clinics that even talk about abortion as an option. So what was the true purpose of nominating Ashcroft? There are plenty of people in the Republican Party who could have filled the position of Attorney General. But few of those were as �clean� as Ashcroft is. He has few skeletons in his closet in comparison to many politicians, even the President. However, his views provide an important test for both parties. The republicans have control in both houses of Congress in terms of voting. Some call it a 50-50 split in the Senate, but the reality is a 51-50 majority in the Senate because of Vice President Cheney�s tie breaking vote. However, in order to get a Senate vote, the republicans must get past any potential filibusters that the democrats may want to put forth. In order to �kill� a filibuster, 60 votes are needed. So the key number is 60, not a majority. By putting Ashcroft forward, the republicans test the waters for the issues of religion, affirmative action and abortion. By using Ashcroft, they get to find out what the margin is in the Senate, who is willing to support those positions potentially, and where they may be able to find key votes to get to 60 on those issues. Republicans get to explore some of the reasons for voting against Ashcroft and thus find weak links from those who may not have opposed him on certain issues. If one democratic Senator voted against Ashcroft for his abortion stand, but not based on affirmative action, could that Senator be a potential swing vote on affirmative action issues? The republicans also limit any damage by not actually bringing up those issues, so the party and the President are not seen committing to a position that may hurt them later. However, that is just the tip of the iceberg. The President gets to appoint Supreme Court nominees. That becomes especially important considering it has become so evident that 3-4 Supreme Court justices will be stepping down in this presidential term. That leaves President Bush with the task of selecting these nominees. Very little would be more embarrassing to the President than to have many nominees rejected in confirmation hearings. During the Presidential campaign, President Bush said he would appoint �strict constructionalist� judges to the bench. A �strict constructionalist� has a view of the constitution that does not view the right to privacy as a right. The right to privacy is a key foundation for the Roe v Wade decision. If the right to privacy does not exist, then a woman does not have the right to have an abortion that is interpreted out of the right to privacy. While it does not use abortion as a �litmus test�, it may as well be a �litmus test.� If the President only appoints �strict constructionalist� judges, because of the way the view the constitution, those judges would favor overturning Roe v Wade and eliminating abortion. And the democrats know this. The democrats also used this as a test. After listening to or reading many of the remarks about Ashcroft from both parties as he left his office as Senator, one would be hard pressed to believe that Ashcroft did not have the respect of many in the Senate in both parties. Potentially even a Saint. However, if one only listened to the attacks on Ashcroft, one might think he was the second coming of Hitler. Somewhere in between is probably the real Ashcroft. However, he becomes a test on the same issues the republicans are testing. The democrats need to find out any weak links in their armor before the policies and Supreme Court nominees begin coming forth. The key number for democrats in this vote was 41 votes against Ashcroft, since that is the number needed to sustain any filibuster to prevent a vote. Ashcroft was confirmed with 58 votes, giving the democrats 42. What does this mean? 1 2 |