The Hill
December 08, 2004
By Alexander Bolton
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Senate Republicans are preparing to implement a sophisticated, multipronged plan to confirm President Bush's expected nomination to replace ailing Supreme Court Chief Justice William Rehnquist.
Well-funded liberal groups are also ramping up their efforts to block any conservative nominee.
Activists working with White House and Senate staffers say the 80-year old Rehnquist's battle with thyroid cancer has sharply focused attention.
The controversy over comments that Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), incoming Judiciary Committee chairman, made downplaying the chances of anti-abortion-rights nominees being confirmed also accelerated planning.
"The groups on the center-right are prepared to mobilize at a moment's notice," said Jay Sekulow, chief counsel of the American Center for Law and Justice, a group with 600,000 active members. "There have been a series of meetings with a lot of the Senate staff. The bulk of the effort is focusing on the Senate side."
Sekulow said discussions on a Supreme Court confirmation and the so-called "nuclear option" to strip Democrats of the ability to filibuster nominees are "bundled."
Republican battle lines are similar to those drawn up in summer 2003, when many believed Rehnquist or Justice Sandra Day O'Connor would announce their retirement. That strategy was drafted by Manuel Miranda, who was Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist's (R-Tenn.) senior aide on judicial strategy.
Bill Wichterman, who heads coalition outreach for Frist, took on judicial confirmation planning for Frist at the beginning of this year.
Under the Miranda plan, as soon as Bush nominated a justice, Republicans and conservatives would issue press releases pre-emptively to deflect liberal efforts to define the nominee. Conservative groups would issue their own information packets while selected Republican senators would make statements and floor speeches.
While the nomination was reviewed in committee, Republican senators would speak publicly to counter expected negative coverage by newspapers such as The New York Times and The Washington Post.
Once the nomination reached the Senate floor, the majority leader and majority whip would take over and mobilize the entire conference behind the nominee. The 40-hour debate that Republican senators staged on the Senate floor at the end of 2003 was a trial run for this battle.
Outside groups would also be involved. Organizations such as Coalition for a Fair Judiciary would handle grassroots work while The Federalist Society would provide substantive arguments for use in Senate and media debates.
The business community would be expected to fund the communications campaign.
On the other side of the judicial battlefield, liberal groups led by People for the American Way and the Alliance for Justice are preparing a multimillion-dollar effort to publicize the record of whomever Bush taps for the high court.
Nan Aron, who heads the Alliance for Justice, said Bush should consult Democrats before making his selection. Sen. Pat Leahy (D-Vt.) similarly called for consultation last year.
Choosing a conservative such as Brett Kavanaugh, whom many Republicans highly respect, would cause "widespread concern," Aron said.
Other traditional Democratic allies including the Sierra Club, NARAL Pro-Choice America, the AFL-CIO and Human Rights Campaign will likely join the effort against a conservative nominee.
"Clearly more than a thousand organizations are interested and involved in judicial nominations," Aron said. She said the coalition includes groups never before involved in a Supreme Court battle, such as Indian tribes and environmental groups.
Ralph Neas, head of People for the American Way, said his group has been preparing for a Supreme Court battle ever since he joined it five years ago.
"We've been preparing since day one for the possibility" of having to oppose a conservative nominee, said Neas. "This is not for the last few weeks but for my entire five years."
Neas said that his organization has researched possible nominees since 2000, when Bush praised Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas, the most conservative, textualist members of the court.
Aron said her group has researched hundreds of potential nominees, producing such a volume of material that it must be stored outside of the group's headquarters.
Neither Aron nor Neas would say how much either plans to spend to thwart a conservative nomination, but conservative activists who focus on the judiciary said the groups have millions of dollars. Neas said People for the American Way raised between $15 million and $20 million a per year for the past four years.
Aron said that, as soon as Bush chooses a nominee, "the first step would be to share information on who the nominee is."
Aron said that her group and allies have met Senate Democratic staff members but that discussions have slowed because Congress has been out of town for most of October and November.
A coalition of conservative groups is forming to oppose the message of People for the American Way and other liberal groups, but conservative strategists and Republican aides said those right-wing groups lack the resources to match the left wing.
The Committee for Justice, headed by former White House counsel C. Boyden Gray, which will take a leading role in a Supreme Court fight, has existed for just two years. Sean Rushton, the group's executive director, would not reveal his organizational budget.
Rushton said mobilization for the fight over Rehnquist's successor is well under way.
"We've begun expanding our outreach, adding contacts to our lists and expanding our communication apparatus in preparation for next year, whether that's appellate-court fights, a rules filibuster change or a Supreme Court nomination," he said. "People are looking to partner with us and get our information out to their constituents."