Democrats in the U.S. Senate last week stalled the controversial nomination of Alabama Attorney General Bill Pryor to the Atlanta-based 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

President Bush nominated Pryor to the court in April, causing an outburst of criticism from gay rights groups over Pryor’s support for the Texas sodomy law recently overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court.

But two prominent Georgia Democrats — Sen. Zell Miller and Attorney General Thurbert Baker — remain supportive of Pryor’s nomination to the court, which has jurisdiction over Georgia, Florida and Alabama.

“I feel President Bush should have never nominated anyone whose thinking has been proven to be so far out of mainstream thinking,” said Ken Baker, co-founder and director of Alabama Equality, a statewide gay rights group. “We’re very pleased that his nomination has not been advanced.”

In a brief filed with the U.S. Supreme Court supporting Texas’ sodomy law in Lawrence v. Texas, Pryor compared homosexual conduct to “activities like prostitution, adultery, necrophilia, bestiality, possession of child pornography and even incest and pedophilia.” He has also stated his staunch opposition to abortion, including in cases of rape and incest.

Nomination deadlock
Pryor’s nomination moved to the full Senate for a vote on July 31 after being approved along partisan lines by the Senate Judiciary Committee, chaired by Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah). Democrats followed through on a filibuster threat and Hatch was unable to secure enough votes for a cloture motion that would have opened the way for a vote on the nomination.

A cloture vote requires 60 votes, but only 53 — 51 Republicans and two Democrats, Miller and Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) — voted in favor, stalling the second vote, which only requires a majority for Pryor to be confirmed.

“It’s unfortunate that [Hatch] even had to file a cloture motion, and clearly he’s dissatisfied with the treatment Attorney General Pryor has received,” said Margarita Tapia, a staffer on the Senate Judiciary Committee. “What we’re seeking for is an up or down vote.

“If they are going to oppose a nominee, they can vote against them,” Tapia said. “But to filibuster a president’s nominee is unprecedented.”

In a speech on the Senate floor July 31, Hatch also called the filibustering of judicial nominees “unprecedented, in fact, in the history of the United States.”

But Thomas Mann, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, said Hatch and Tapia are being disingenuous in labeling the filibuster as “unprecedented.”

“Filibustering judicial nominees on the floor of the Senate is not unprecedented, but it has been done very infrequently in the past,” Mann said. “When in the majority, Republicans blocked votes in committee or with holds on many [President] Clinton’s judicial nominees. The tactics differ but the result is the same.

“The only way out of this mess is for the president to take seriously the constitutional injunction to make his appointments with the advice and consent of the Senate,” Mann said.

Candidates for judicial posts certain to become lightning rods for controversy shouldn’t be nominated in the first place, according to Lynn Hogue, chair of the Legal Advisory Board of the Atlanta-based conservative Southeastern Legal Foundation and a law professor at Georgia State University.

“I think it’s important to choose judges for their judicial demeanor, and that may mean that some people who have staked out strong positions may be less desirable choices for judicial offices,” Hogue said. “Statesmanship has taken a back seat and everything is judged in terms of short-term political advantage.”

In order to end what he called “a tit-for-tat on steroids” in judicial confirmations, Hogue said the process must be de-politicized.

Ga. Democrats back Pryor
Pryor’s nomination was endorsed by Georgia Attorney General Thurbert Baker, the only statewide Democrat who did not receive an endorsement from Georgia Equality, a statewide gay rights group, during last year’s election cycle.

“Bill has distinguished himself time and again with the legal acumen that he brings to issues of national or regional concern as well as with his commitment to furthering the prospects of good and responsive government,” Baker wrote in a March 31 letter supporting the Pryor nomination.

Pryor has been committed to fighting white-collar crime, government corruption and the proliferation of date-rape drugs, Baker noted.

Baker did not respond to repeated interview requests about the Pryor nomination. Baker also did not respond to Georgia Equality’s candidate questionnaire last fall, according to Allen Thornell, the group’s executive director.

“We don’t know what his record is on gay rights issues,” Thornell said. “To a large degree, he’s just been an unknown.”

Miller, a former governor elected to the ...

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