"This is a regime that has something to hide from the civilized world. States like these, and their terrorist allies, constitute an axis of evil, arming to threaten the peace of the world."
- U.S. President G. W. Bush
01.29.2002
- by ELISABETH BUMILLER
New York Times
03.29.2002
CRAWFORD, Tex., March 28 - In his first substantive response to the Democratic rejection of Judge Charles W. Pickering Sr. of Mississippi for a federal appeals court post, President Bush hit back today at the leadership of the Senate and said that he would continue to push for "good, conservative judges" on the nation's highest courts.
Mr. Bush spoke in Dallas at a lunch that raised $1.8 million for the Texas Republican Party and the Senate campaign of John Cornyn, the state's attorney general, before returning here to his 1,600-acre ranch. The lunch capped a two-day, three-state presidential swing that raised more than $4.3 million for Republican candidates and the party.
"We've got to get good, conservative judges appointed to the bench and approved by the United States Senate," Mr. Bush said to more than 1,000 people at the Hyatt Regency Hotel. On Wednesday night at a fundraiser in Atlanta, Mr. Bush said that "we're going to have more fights when it comes to the judiciary," and "I'm going to put strict constructionists on the bench."
Mr. Bush's words were a defiant response to Senate Democrats, who on March 14 rejected Judge Pickering, the president's nominee and his first judicial defeat, as too conservative. The Democrats said at the time that they also wanted to send a message that their majority in the Senate gave them the power to block his choices and that Mr. Bush should send up more moderates.
"We want to compromise with the president," Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York, who is a member of the Judiciary Committee, said today. "If the president sends us judge after judge who is way out of the mainstream, it's going to create gridlock. The view that it's `my way or the highway' is not going to get us anywhere."
Mr. Bush made clear today and on Wednesday night that he would not acquiesce, and that his solution was to aggressively raise money for his party's candidates in an effort to regain Republican control of the Senate in the November midterm elections.
"We need people like John Cornyn in the United States Senate, who will work with the White House to have a solid judiciary, to make sure that the judges do what they're supposed to do in the United States and not overstep their bounds," Mr. Bush said at the fund-raiser for Mr. Cornyn, repeating his frequent call for conservative judges who strictly interpret the Constitution.
"I want people on the bench who don't try to use their position to legislate from the bench," Mr. Bush said. "We want people to interpret the law, not try to make law and write law."
During his presidential campaign in November 1999, Mr. Bush said that the most important qualification of a judge was whether the judge would "strictly interpret the Constitution of the United States." He also singled out Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence M. Thomas, the court's two most conservative members, as justices whom he held in high regard.
Today in Dallas, Mr. Bush was appearing at his third fund-raiser for Republican Senate candidates in two days. The president's schedule showed how much the White House wanted Republicans to win control of the Senate, which has stymied crucial parts of Mr. Bush's legislative agenda. The White House says that five Senate seats, in South Dakota, Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri and Georgia, are vulnerable to Republican takeover.
Today, Mr. Bush helped raise $1.4 million in $1,000 contributions for Mr. Cornyn, and $400,000 in unlimited soft-money donations to the Texas Republican Party. Earlier this week, White House officials said that the lunch for Mr. Cornyn could bring in $1.2 million to $1.5 million, but today David Beckwith, Mr. Cornyn's campaign spokesman, said that the event raised more than expected. Mr. Bush is an enormous draw on the Republican fund-raising circuit.
On Wednesday night in Atlanta, Mr. Bush helped raise more than $1.4 million for the Georgia Republican Party and the Senate campaign of Representative Saxby Chambliss, who is facing a primary challenge before he can run against Max Cleland, a Democrat who is the state's senior senator. The White House is backing Mr. Chambliss, even though supporters of state Representative Bob Irvin of Atlanta, Mr. Chambliss's primary opponent, have asked the president to stay out of the primary.
In some of his most partisan remarks since Sept. 11, Mr. Bush said in Atlanta that he had nominated a "a good man from Mississippi," a reference to Judge Pickering, who is a federal trial judge, "and I don't remember the senior senator from Georgia defending this man's honor."
Mr. Bush arrived at his ranch late on Wednesday, left today at 10 a.m. on Marine One for the one-hour helicopter flight to Dallas, met briefly with firefighters and rescue workers, made a 21-minute speech at the lunch for Mr. Cornyn, and was back at his ranch by midafternoon.
The president is to remain at his ranch through Easter morning, with no public events, and is to return to the White House on Sunday.
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