Ashcroft Nomination

[Rick Duncan]

I think Sen. Ashcroft is highly respected, both in
Missouri and in the Senate. Liberal extremists will
scream--"this is an attack on Roe"--but they always
cry wolf whenever a mainstream conservative is
nominated for anything.

Ashcroft will have no problem being confirmed by the
Senate Club (indeed, he is a possible conservative SCt
nominee, who is confirmable in a 50-50 Senate).

Look for our friend Carl Esbeck of Missouri-Columbia
to be offered a top job in Justice.

Cheerfully, Rick Duncan



--- Cornell Clayton <cornell at MAIL.WSU.EDU> wrote:
> I'm interested in what members of the list think of
> George W's appointment
> of Ashcroft to be AG.  My initial thoughts are:
>
> 1.  This is not good news for the Department of
> Justice.  Whatever can be
> said about Janet Reno's decisions in particular
> cases and management style,
> she was not partisan and did not use the DOJ
> aggressively to pursue the
> administration's political agenda.  If Ashcroft is
> confirmed, the DOJ will
> become a strategic epicenter for the conservative
> policy agenda (perhaps
> emboldened by the idea that a partisan Supreme Court
> is now ready to give
> conservatives more of what they want in a number of
> social policy areas --
> abortion, privacy, affirmative action, school
> prayer, etc.).  In comparing
> Ashcroft to other post-Watergate AGs, he strikes me
> more like John Mitchell
> or Edwin Meese, who saw their role as partisan
> advocates, rather than Edward
> Levi, Griffin Bell, or even William French Smith,
> who all tended to adopt a
> more quasi-juidical attitude about their office.
>
> 2.  I suspect Ashcroft will have the toughest
> confirmation battle of any of
> the nominees to date.  His extreme conservative
> views, coupled with his
> efforts to defeat Clinton's nomination of Missouri
> Supreme Court justice
> Ronnie White to a seat on the federal bench and his
> championship of the
> failed Bork nomination, will all probably come back
> to haunt him.
>
> 3.  In this year of incredible firsts, this must be
> the first Cabinet-level
> nomination to go to an incumbent politician defeated
> by a dead challenger.
> Surely his nomination is a pean to the right-wing of
> the GOP in exchange, I
> suppose, for them accepting "liberals" like Whitman.
>  There must be more
> respected, less controversial Republicans Bush could
> tap for this position.
> What does it say about Bush's view of the DOJ and
> its role in his
> administration?  Any predictions about who will be
> nominated as Solicitor
> General, Deputy AG and Associate AG?
>
> Cornell Clayton
> Washington State University


=====
Rick Duncan (conlawprof at yahoo.com)

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Shopping - Thousands of Stores. Millions of Products.
http://shopping.yahoo.com/