June 26, 2001 Schumer Argues for Questioning Judicial Nominees on Ideology By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Filed at 6:59 p.m. ET
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The ideological views of President Bush's judicial nominees should be a public factor in nomination hearings, a Senate Judiciary chairman said Tuesday.
Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., who chairs the Judiciary courts subcommittee, said at a hearing that senators always secretly considered ideology when making decisions about judges.
``It's just that we don't talk about it openly,'' he said. ``This unwillingness to openly examine ideology has sometimes led senators who oppose a nominee to seek out non-ideological disqualifying factors, such as small financial improprieties from long ago, to justify their opposition.''
Talking openly about hot ideological issues like abortion would ``make our confirmation process more honest, more clear and hopefully more legitimate,'' Schumer said.
Republicans on the committee immediately accused Democrats of looking for excuses to eliminate Bush's nominees.
``The Senate's responsibility to provide advice and consent does not include an ideological litmus test,'' said Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah, the top Judiciary Republican. ``A nominee's personal opinions are largely irrelevant so long as the nominee can set those opinions aside and follow the law fairly and impartially as a judge.''
Using ideology openly will make it harder to get any judges on the bench in the future, said Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz.
The Senate could begin holding judicial nominations hearings for Bush's first candidates next month.
GOP senators fear Democrats, who took over the Senate this month, will use their majority status to block Bush's judicial choices for political reasons, including Republicans' treatment of several of former President Clinton's nominees.
Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., has refused to hold any nomination hearings until after the Senate is reorganized. Senate Majority Leader Thomas Daschle, D-S.D., has promised that the reorganization would be finished by the Independence Day holiday, or he would work senators throughout that week, which they normally take off.
Daschle and other Democrats have said they won't require judges to agree with all of their positions to get confirmed, but they won't allow Bush to nominate hard-right conservatives to the courts either.
``We ought to look for diversity,'' Daschle said Tuesday. ``And we certainly ought to ensure that people aren't extremists, left or right.''
Many of the legal experts brought in for the hearing agreed that ideological questions should be avoided if at all possible.
``If senators focus on the results or outcomes in particular, people will simply view the judiciary as another political institution,'' said C. Boyden Gray, former White House counsel under the administration of Bush's father.