BOXER SLAMS GOP ON JUDICIARY PROCESS

Conservatives blamed for judgeship delays

U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer yesterday said a bloc of conservative senators have
so "warped and distorted" the process by which judges are approved that the
federal judiciary is in a state of crisis.

The Democratic senator said many qualified nominees have been scared off by
the Republicans' tactics and withdrawn their names from consideration,
while others have seen their nominations languish for years without
reaching the Senate floor for a vote.

"They're being held up by the three I's -- intimidation, innuendo and
ideology -- and we cannot allow that to dominate," Boxer told the National
Association of Women Lawyers meeting at San Diego's U.S. Grant Hotel.

"We have a crisis when we have 90 openings and we're moving one judge a
week, maybe."

The notion of a federal judiciary in crisis has been taken up by others
before Boxer, including William Rehnquist, the chief justice of the U.S.
Supreme Court, and Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, the chairman of the Senate
Judiciary Committee. Both have contended the lack of new judges endangers
the system's integrity.

However, Boxer has first-hand experience combating conservatives over
judicial appointments.

In 1993, she recommended Superior Court Judge Judith McConnell of San Diego
to the federal bench, only to have McConnell withdraw her name from
consideration after Republicans launched a campaign against her and other
Clinton nominees. Republicans focused on a 1987 case in which McConnell
awarded custody of a 16-year-old boy to his deceased father's gay partner
instead of the boy's mother.

Other nominees that Boxer has recommended to the White House have come
before the Senate only after long delays.

More recently, Boxer was peppered with radio commercials in which
Republican challenger Darrell Issa claimed "some of Barbara Boxer's choices
for federal judge were so liberal even President Clinton rejected them."

Boxer, however, said Republican opposition to "judicial activists" is not
an attempt to weed out liberals so much as to weed out independent jurists.

"Who is a 'judicial activist' anyway?" Boxer asked. "I think it's anyone
with a pulse and heartbeat. Are you supposed to be someone who's never done
anything in your life? Are you supposed to be someone who's never had an
opinion in your life? It's a frightening prospect.

"They oppose people for having a thought in their heads. They have warped
and distorted the nomination process."

Boxer said she has sought to nominate as many women as men to the bench,
and "worked very hard to make the American judiciary look more like
America."

She said the screening process she has created to review potential nominees
assesses them solely on their qualifications.

"I haven't known one of the people I recommended to President Clinton," she
said. "They have all made it on their own."

Copyright 1998 Union-Tribune Publishing Co.