Pickering Got a Fairer Shake than Dems

To the editors:

The problem with mouthing rhetoric is that it often leaves the speaker intellectually empty-handed. Such is the case with the column by Jason L. Steorts ’01-’03 (“Picking on Pickering,” March 22). Steorts’ argument that Sen. Trent Lott (R-Miss.) is justified in his public threats of retaliation for Judge Charles Pickering’s defeat holds an embarrassingly low expectation of our leaders.

While I imagine Steorts is too young to remember much of the Clinton years, his assertion that the senate Democrats have done anything worse than Republican treatment of Clinton’s nominees fails the laugh test. Since assuming the majority eight months ago, senate Democrats have confirmed 35 district and 7 circuit court judges. By contrast, in 1996, senate Republicans confirmed just 17 judges, none of which were for the circuit courts. Moreover, the reason why Judge Ronnie White was the only Clinton nominee to be defeated by the Republican Congress was because 57 of Clinton’s nominees never even received a hearing. Judge Pickering got at least this much.

Finally, Steorts ought not complain about the number of judicial vacancies—during the Republican majority in the senate, judicial vacancies on the circuit courts grew by 250 percent. Steorts also claims to be “outraged” at the decision not to send Pickering’s nomination to the Senate floor after it was rejected by the Judiciary Committee. Yet the Senate has never done this for a district or circuit court nominee. While Senate leaders agreed to give floor consideration to all Supreme Court nominees, they refused to do this for district and circuit court nominees for fear that it would undermine the very function that committees serve.

The fact is that Senate Democrats gave Pickering a fair hearing and decided that he did not merit a circuit court appointment because of his questionable commitment to civil rights. This process was anything but “anti-democratic,” and it was far and away better treatment than Senate Republicans gave to Clinton’s nominees. Perhaps Steorts ought to pay closer attention to his admonition for law students about writing juvenescent opinions, lest he be “clobbered over the head” with them.

Nathan T. Daschle

March 28, 2002

The writer is a third-year student at Harvard Law School.