The Senate Judiciary Committee refused to endorse Judge Clarence Thomas for the U.S. Supreme Court Friday, but his supporters predicted they have enough votes to confirm him when the Senate votes, possibly late next week.
The panel, voting largely along party lines, split 7-7 on favorably recommending Thomas, 43, to replace retiring Justice Thurgood Marshall and become the second black justice in Supreme Court history. Sen. Dennis DeConcini of Arizona was the only Democrat to join the committee`s six Republicans in voting for Thomas.
The committee then voted 13-1 to send the nomination to the full Senate without a recommendation, the lone dissenter being Sen. Paul Simon (D-Ill.).
Democrats opposing Thomas expressed a range of emotions about the vote, expressing regret and frustration with the administration as well as the federal appeals court judge`s answers during recent confirmation hearings.
Chairman Joseph Biden (D-Del.) said he had ”a heavy heart” about voting against Thomas but did not want to put ”another ultra-conservative member”
on an already conservative court.
”I believe Judge Thomas does not now have an agenda, but . . . I wonder what sort of an approach he will have as a justice once he acquires a point of view,” Biden said on the Senate floor shortly before the vote.
”I cannot vote my hopes. . . . There`s too much at stake for me to take the chance.”
Biden said he had hoped Thomas would clear up doubts with his testimony, but the nominee had failed to put them to rest.
”Judge Thomas gave us many responses but too few real answers,” Biden said. ”Perhaps some advised him this would be the best route to confirmation- and perhaps they are right about the politics. But it is a political strategy that I do not intend to endorse by voting for Judge Thomas`
confirmation.”
The committee vote added an element of uncertainty to a confirmation that had seemed almost assured.
”The odds still favor confirmation,” said a civil rights activist,
”but with every passing day, the odds are narrowed.”
However, even Democrats who voted against Thomas said he is likely to win a majority in the full Senate, where Democrats hold a 57-43 edge. At least nine Democrats already have said they will support Thomas, and most of the Republicans are expected to vote for confirmation.
”I think most of them will vote the political vote, vote with the president,” Sen. Howard Metzenbaum (D-Ohio), one of Thomas` most outspoken opponents, said after the committee voted.
Thomas Mann, director of governmental studies at the Brookings Institution, predicted that Southern Democratic senators were unlikely to follow the lead of Judiciary Committee member Howell Heflin of Alabama, who voted against Thomas.
Even though blacks are deeply divided over the nomination, there is a lot of support among Southern blacks for Thomas, a native Georgian who rose from poverty to hold powerful federal jobs. For those senators, support from black voters is crucial to election victory.
”A vote against Thomas has little to offer politically for Southern Democrats,” Mann said. ”They may do it simply on the basis of their very strong feelings, but it`s hard to justify it on political grounds.”
Sens. Sam Nunn of Georgia and J. Bennett Johnston and John Breaux of Louisiana already have said they will support Thomas.
Republicans said they hope to have Thomas confirmed in time to join the court when the new term opens Oct. 7. Biden and other Democrats said they did not intend to delay a vote.
Democrats opposing Thomas on the Judiciary Committee said they had too many doubts about whether he would protect individual rights.
Prior to the vote Democrats complained about his record as chairman of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission as well as his testimony during five days of questioning. They said he had provided little insight into his judicial philosophy, evaded their questions and given answers that conflicted with past controversial statements and writings.
Several Democrats expressed disbelief at his statement that he had never discussed Roe vs. Wade, the 1973 ruling that established a woman`s right to abortion.
Simon pointedly said he believed President Bush had chosen Thomas because his views would ”satisfy the most rigidly conservative” Republicans. Simon said he feared Thomas would preserve the status quo rather than championing the less fortunate.
”It would be good to have an African-American in this position of great influence, but not if the price is to compromise the future of millions of others less fortunate,” he said.
Another member, Sen. Herb Kohl (D-Wis.), said that during the hearings Thomas failed to indicate ”a clear judicial philosophy,” exercised
”selective recall,” showed a lack of curiosity about the law, displayed limited legal knowledge, and engaged in ”oratorical opportunism.”
”I was unable to determine what views and values he would bring to the bench,” Kohl said.
Sen. John Danforth (R-Mo.), Thomas` main Senate supporter and the nominee`s former boss, said on the Senate floor before the vote that he was
”not likely to hire a right-wing fanatic” for his staff. Thomas worked for Danforth as an assistant attorney general in Missouri and later as a legislative aide in Washington.
Danforth, a moderate Republican who is not a member of the Judiciary Committee, said it was unreasonable to expect Thomas to have a fully developed philosophy on a range of constitutional issues because the nominee has spent most of his adult life in policymaking jobs rather than on the bench.
”There has to be a degree of confidence that we are voting for character, that we are voting for a person and not the embodiment of some particular point of view,” Danforth said.
Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), a judiciary panel member, said he believes Thomas ”will not forget his humble beginnings, will not forget those who are minorities, will not forget the downtrodden.”
Hatch said he was concerned about subjecting nominees to ”a liberal set of litmus tests that are operating to the denigration of minorities in this country.”
Heflin`s decision to oppose Thomas had been unexpected because he is one of the committee`s more conservative Democrats. The senator, a former chief justice on the Alabama Supreme Court, said he supports a conservative U.S. Supreme Court, but he wondered whether Thomas belongs to ”the right-wing extremist movement.”
Before the vote, there were references to a Sept. 26 report in Legal Times, a trade newspaper, suggesting that Thomas may have delayed releasing an opinion in a decision that reportedly would revoke a Federal Communications Commission license awarded to a woman under the agency`s gender-preference policy.
Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), who during testimony questioned Thomas extensively about his views on affirmative action, said he had asked Thomas about the Legal Times report and the judge had ”categorically denied withholding any opinion.” Specter said Thomas told him he had ”been thoroughly occupied with the confirmation hearings” since July 1, though he had issued opinions in two other cases.
