Federal Judge Nominees: Pawns in the Culture War

By David Brody
Capitol Hill Correspondent

CBN.com – HATTIESBURG, Mississippi - In John Roberts' Supreme Court nomination hearing, Democrats will grill him on a number of topics.

There is another judge who knows all about tough questions from the Democrats: former federal judge Charles Pickering.

For Pickering, this is the life - at home with his wife Margaret Ann, enjoying life in rural Mississippi. It beats hanging out for the day with Chuck Schumer (D-NY), Patrick Leahy (D-VT), and other liberal Democrats.

But that is where Pickering found himself several years ago. "I did not choose to be a player in the cultural war," he commented.

But he was. Nominated by President Bush to be a federal judge, Democrats labeled him often and early, calling him “out of the mainstream” and hostile to civil rights.

Pickering remarked, "I thought I was uncontroversial, and I thought I would just slide through. I naively told people that I was a non-controversial nominee."

But Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-MA) and other liberal Democrats saw it differently. "Surely there are well-qualified nominees who won't use their judicial power to roll back civil rights or vent their scorn for Supreme Court precedents," Kennedy said.

For four years, Pickering dealt with the accusations - accusations that he was somehow unsympathetic to African-Americans. His critics pointed to a case where he reduced the sentence of a convicted cross burner.

But his defenders say, take a closer look at the facts, that Pickering gave the lesser sentence because a lengthier punishment was unfair, based on what the other two defendants in the case received. But Democrats, ultimately, blocked his nomination.

"People would ask me sometimes, doesn't it bother you that they are saying things that are not true about you?” Pickering said, “and my response was, well, it would bother me a lot more if they were true."

Bush ended up putting Pickering on the federal appeals court using a recess appointment to do it. But to stay on permanently as a federal judge, he would have had to be renominated by the President. Instead, he decided to retire, to avoid going through the tiresome fight against the Democrats once again.

"I had fought the fight for four years,” Pickering said. “I concluded that it was better for the President to be able to nominate somebody younger who could serve longer, and someone who could be confirmed; and for my wife and I, it was time to get on with life and do other things. We have 21 grandchildren, so it was just time for this to happen."

But clearly the scars of that bruising confirmation process linger. And for Pickering, it is important to let it all go and not hold any grudges against the Democrats who opposed him so fiercely.

CBN News asked the judge if he had any anger towards them, to which Pickering responded, “No. You know, bitterness is too big a burden to carry through life, and the person it affects the most is the person who carries it.”

Pickering has been through a lot. His reputation has taken a hit by liberal Democrats. So sometimes to get clarity, you need to get away from it all. For the judge, his home here in rural Mississippi has done just that. He has had time to reflect on the bruising confirmation process and it has led him to write a book.

"You don't go through a process like that,” Pickering stated, “unless you feel like, hopefully, at somewhere at the end of the day you can make a positive contribution."

He hopes his book will make a difference. Now that he is no longer a sitting judge, he can speak out. And he is taking dead-aim at the liberal special interest groups.

Pickering declared, "They accuse the Bush nominees of being out of the mainstream of American thought, but polls indicate clearly that the positions they (liberal special interest groups) hold are the ones that are way, way out of the mainstream of American thought."

He says they are the ones driving the liberal democratic agenda in the party. He says his story is living proof.

"Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) told Trent Lott (R-MS), and told my son this voluntarily, ‘We're going to confirm your dad by December.’ The groups said, ‘No, not so fast’; so they were calling the shots, they were calling the tempo," Pickering said.

When CBN News mentioned to Pickering that the Democrats said they are not taking their cues from special interest groups, Pickering replied, “Oh, I know better. I was there. We would have contact with the office of the Democratic senators. They would indicate one thing was going to be done, but the groups would say, ‘No, wait a minute - that's not what we want to do,’ and guess who won? The groups won every time."

But his upcoming book is not all about trashing liberals. It is about something much larger- a culture war that liberal interest groups are determined to win.

"What drove this battle are the issues that are involved in the culture war,” Pickering explained, “and they have to do with references to God in the public square, the definition of marriage, and pornography, but the issue that drives the fight, the issue that drives the engines of opposition is the abortion issue…that's primarily what this battle is about."

When Judge John Roberts was nominated as a Supreme Court justice, Pickering says it is no wonder that he was opposed. His views on the right-to-life issue worry liberals.

Pickering stated, "I knew in advance what they were going to say about John Roberts. They were going to say that he was a threat to these rights. That he was out of the mainstream, and they said that before they had ever researched his record. Doesn't matter."

But for all his talk about liberals, the Democrats and their agenda, the judge says this is not about payback. Not at all. The book he is writing is one he hopes will do some good.

It troubles him that judges are left in limbo for so long, just hanging out there - pawns in a political game. His nomination languished four years. The same occurred with Priscilla Owen, and others before them.

He says that no matter what your political affiliation, that should not happen. He wants the Congress to pass a law that would set a timetable for hearings and votes. No more delays.

Pickering remarked, "A judge would then know that, after a reasonable period of time, he would either be confirmed, or he will go on with his life."

Pickering has gone on with his life. "What happened to me is not that important in the scheme of things,” he said. “But what is happening to the judiciary is tremendously important to all Americans. So, I'm not bitter - my spirits are good. My faith has not been weakened. God's grace indeed is sufficient."

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