WASHINGTON (ABP) — Prominent progressives — including former Vice President Al Gore — and conservatives traded barbs and polls April 27 in the contentious debate over judicial nominations.
Gore, speaking to the liberal MoveOn.org political action committee in Washington, used stronger language than many of his Democratic colleagues in attacking the rhetoric of some religious conservatives on the issue. They and Republicans in the Senate are locked in a battle with Democrats over making it easier for President Bush's most conservative judicial nominees to gain Senate approval.
“Our founders understood that the way you protect and defend people of faith — and I am one — is by preventing any one sect from dominating,” Gore told MoveOn supporters. “Most people of faith that I know in both parties have been getting a belly full of this extremist push to coat their political agenda in religiosity and mix it up in their version of religion and politics — and force it on everyone else.”
Gore continued: “They should learn that religious faith is a precious freedom and not a tool with which to divide and conquer politically. It is a dangerous mixture.”
Gore singled out two conservative evangelical leaders — James Dobson of Focus on the Family and Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council — in referring to the rhetoric surrounding the “Justice Sunday” telecast their groups sponsored. The event, broadcast across the country from a Southern Baptist church in Kentucky April 24, denounced Democrats for using a Senate procedural rule “against people of faith” whom Bush had nominated to the federal bench.
It requires 60 votes in the 100-member Senate to close debate on any issue and move on to a substantive vote. Republicans, who hold a 55-member majority, have been frustrated that all of the chamber's 44 Democrats and one left-leaning independent have stymied 10 of Bush's judicial nominees via the tactic, known as a “filibuster.”
Democrats said the idea that they are using the filibuster to block some of Bush's judicial nominees because of their religious beliefs was preposterous. They also note that, of the 215 judicial nominees Bush has proposed, the Senate has approved 205.
Many moderate religious leaders, including the heads of most of the nation's major Protestant denominations, denounced the “Justice Sunday” rhetoric as well. Nonetheless, Gore's speech drew a swift and acrimonious reply from Perkins.
“Al Gore and some of the Democratic Senators made this debate about religion; we didn't,” Perkins said in a press release. “Unfortunately, it is clear from Al Gore's comments that he is the one that wants to exclude people from the public square based upon some religious litmus test.
“All Americans have a voice in our system of government,” Perkins continued. “We are supporting the American way — discuss, debate and decide, not flip-flop and filibuster.”
Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.), who is widely expected to run for president in 2008, has threatened to do away with the rule allowing filibusters for judicial nominees. He would need only 50 votes to accomplish that.
Perkins and Gore's rhetorical exchange came a day after a Washington Post-ABC News poll showed a large majority of Americans seem to oppose the plan to do away with the filibuster. In the nationwide survey of 1,007 adults, 66 percent said they oppose “changing Senate rules to make it easier for the Republicans to confirm” the nominees. Only 26 percent said they support the idea.
But Perkins pointed to an internal poll by the Republican National Committee, released the same day, which seemed to show a different result. That poll found that 81 percent of respondents agreed with this statement: “Even if they disagree with a judge, Senate Democrats should at least allow the president's nominations to be voted on.” According to the committee's website, the poll was of 801 registered voters.
Perkins said the Post-ABC News poll's wording of its question was evidence of “media bias” in favor of keeping the filibuster. “All that the poll showed was which side the two media giants are on,” he said. “Not once in the poll do the questions explain that what the Democrats are doing is both unprecedented and borderline unconstitutional.”
Gore's speech was designed to be a prelude to dozens of “Stop the Judicial Takeover” rallies across the country, organized by MoveOn. They took place, according to the group, in 192 locations.
“Any day now, radical Republicans are hoping to seize absolute power to appoint Supreme Court justices who favor right-wing, corporate interests over the rest of us,” a MoveOn.org statement describing the event read. “To do it, Vice President Cheney and Senate Republican leader Bill Frist are threatening to use what they call the 'nuclear option' — a parliamentary maneuver to overturn the 200-year-old tradition that all judges have broad support in Congress.”