Recently President Bush sidestepped the Senate and appointed Judge Charles Pickering to the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals. The process to seat Pickering has been drawn out over many years due to defiant Democrats in the Senate.
The 5th Circuit Court, based in New Orleans, serves Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas. Pickering was a U.S. District Court judge in Hattiesburg.
Because Pickering had enough votes for a successful appointment, Senate Democrats threatened a filibuster bringing the nomination to its knees.
Citing Pickering’s civil rights record, Democrats stalled his nomination. That was until Bush had enough of “minority Democrats … playing politics” and gave Pickering a recess appointment to the bench last Monday.
The recess appointment will allow Pickering to serve until the new Congress convenes in 2005.
The unfounded accusation by some that Pickering has a less-than-desirable civil rights record is the primary excuse for his blocked nomination.
“A man who defended cross-burning does not deserve elevation to the bench,” said Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y. Presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., added that Pickering is a “forceful advocate for cross burners.”
Schumer and Kerry were referring to a case in which two inebriated men and one teenager were accused of burning a cross in front of a biracial couple’s home.
The teenager and Mickey Thomas did the actual burning while the other man, Michael Swan, sat in the truck. The teenager and Thomas plea-bargained and received probation. Michael Swan claimed he was not a racist. He said he was drunk at the time and did not know what was going on. Swan wanted a trial.
He was found guilty and sentenced to more than seven years in prison, due to mandatory sentencing.
The actual perpetrators got probation while the man who did nothing was hit with seven years.
Pickering thought the sentence was not fair and ruled that the mandatory sentence be waived in this case. According to Schumer, this request constitutes Pickering’s “glaring racial insensitivity.”
Pickering’s true civil rights record clearly shows the opposite to be true. He is a man of integrity and has consistently shown his willingness to bridge the racial gap and make the country a better place. His record speaks for itself:
* At the height of the Civil Rights Movement, Pickering moved his children to a newly-integrated school to show his support for desegregation.
* As a state prosecutor in 1969, Pickering testified against a grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, which cost him re-election.
* As the chairman of the state GOP, he hired the first African-American political staffer.
* His cast of supporters includes former Democratic Mississippi Gov. Ronnie Musgrove and Charles Evers, brother of slain civil rights leader Medgar Evers.
The simple truth is that Senate Democrats will do or say anything to block the appointment of as many of Bush’s nominees as possible. Opponents of the president’s nominees have filibustered and jargoned to block not only Pickering, but Miguel Estrada, Priscilla Owens, Janice Roger Browns and Carolyn Kuhl. All are highly respected judges. They just happen to have different opinions and philosophies than Democrats.
Because Senate Democrats would not let Pickering’s nomination come to a vote, Bush was forced to use the same tactics as Bill Clinton. The only fact differing from Clinton’s recess appointment of Bill Lann Lee to the Justice Department was that Lee did not have a majority of votes, while Pickering would have.
Pickering is a decent, honorable, fair man that is a credit to the judiciary process.
Now, all that is left are the other three nominations that the Democratic senators have threatened to filibuster. They know that the three judges will receive enough “yea” votes to be appointed.
The shameful politics should stop and the three women should join Pickering on the bench.
Charlie Swanson is a freshman business administration major. He can be reached at [email protected].