Senator Robert A. Taft Sr.

We are pleased to announce the induction of Mr. Republican, Senator Robert A. Taft Sr. in the BigWorldBlog Conservative Heroes Hall of Fame.

 

 

Robert Alphonso Taft
Official and brief bio from the Senate

TAFT, Robert Alphonso, (1889 - 1953)

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Senate Years of Service: 1939-1953
Party: Republican

TAFT, Robert Alphonso, (son of President William H. Taft, nephew of Charles Phelps Taft, father of Robert Taft, Jr.), a Senator from Ohio; born in Cincinnati, Ohio, September 8, 1889; attended the public schools of Cincinnati, Ohio, and of Manila, Philippine Islands, and Taft School, Watertown, Conn.; graduated from Yale University in 1910 and from Harvard University Law School in 1913; admitted to the Ohio bar in 1913 and commenced practice in Cincinnati, Ohio; director in a number of business enterprises in Cincinnati; assistant counsel, United States Food Administration 1917-1918; counsel, American Relief Administration 1919; member, Ohio house of representatives 1921-1926, serving as speaker and majority leader 1926; member, Ohio Senate 1931-1932; elected as a Republican to the United States Senate in 1938; reelected in 1944 and again in 1950 and served from January 3, 1939, until his death; majority leader 1953; co-chairman, Joint Committee on the Economic Report (Eightieth Congress), chairman, Committee on Labor and Public Welfare (Eightieth Congress), Republican Policy Committee (Eightieth through Eighty-second Congresses); sponsored the Taft-Hartley Act, designed to create equity in collective bargaining between labor and management; unsuccessful candidate in 1940, 1948, and 1952 for the Republican presidential nomination; died in New York City, July 31, 1953; lay in state in the Rotunda of the U.S. Capitol, August 2-3, 1953; interment in Indian Hill Episcopal Church Cemetery, Cincinnati, Ohio.

Bibliography

American National Biography; Dictionary of American Biography; Patterson, James T. Mr. Republican: A Biography of Robert A. Taft. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1972; Wunderlin, Clarence E. Robert A. Taft: Ideas, Tradition, and Party in U.S. Foreign Policy. New York: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2005.

 

Taft was known as "Mr. Republican" for his dominance during the years 1939-1953, when he served as a U.S. senator from Ohio. Taft is most famous for his steady opposition to Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal policies, and for sponsoring the Taft-Hartley Labor Relations Act of 1947. Taft was the son of William Howard Taft, U.S. president from 1909-1913. Robert Taft stood for the GOP presidential nomination three different times, but never received the nomination; in 1952 he was considered a frontrunner but was defeated by war hero Dwight Eisenhower. Taft became Senate majority leader just before his death in 1953.

Taft's son Robert Jr. also was a U.S. senator from Ohio, from 1971-77. His grandson Bob Taft was elected governor of Ohio in 1998.

OTHER ONLINE RESOURCES:

 

The Emergence of Robert Taft
Review of a 1997 biography; says Taft was "ill-suited for the television age"

http://gozips.uakron.edu/~nelson/taft.htm

Clarence E. Wunderlin, Jr. The Papers of Robert A. Taft, Volume 1, 1889-1938. Kent: The Kent State University Press, 1997. xlvii +620 pp. Photographs, notes, bibliography, and index. ISBN 0-87338-572-1.

Reviewed for H-List by Daniel Nelson, nelson@uakron.edu, Department of History, University of Akron

The Emergence of Robert A. Taft

Robert A. Taft was arguably the most important Ohio politician of the first half of the twentieth century, perhaps of the entire century. By the early l950's, his hard work and reputation for personal integrity had won him the title "Mr. Republican," though most voters apparently considered him too conservative, too regional, and above all, too dull to be President. The standard biography, by James T. Patterson, devotes relatively little attention to Taft's pre-senatorial career or to Ohio politics. Taft's early letters, speeches, and editorials, capably edited and annotated by Clarence Wunderlin, thus provide a welcome opportunity to reexamine Taft's early life and emerging political career. The papers confirm the judgment of the early l950's: Taft was personally ill-suited for the television age. (He admitted as early as l922 that "while I have no difficulty talking, I don't know how to do any of the eloquence business which makes for enthusiasm or applause." (271)) But they also reveal a man of superior intellect, a conservative who was receptive to new ideas, and a politician whose instinctive identification with the business community became the basis for highly successful attacks on the New Deal.

The first section, devoted to Taft's childhood, education, and early legal career, is a reminder of how good it was to be wealthy and well-born in the years before World War I. The dutiful elder son of President William Howard Taft, Robert attended the best schools (the family operated Taft school in Connecticut, Yale, and Harvard Law), hob-nobbed with the sons and daughters of other aristocratic families, traveled widely, lived comfortably despite virtually no income, married an heiress, Martha Bowers, and generally took his privileged life for granted. Yet Taft had little in common with most recent first children. Despite his good fortune, he was serious, scholarly, dedicated, and unpretentious. While taking advantage of his elite status, he always assumed that he would have to make his own way in the world. In later years, he increasingly devoted his energies to business activities. In the mid-l920's, for example, he abruptly withdrew from politics - although he was speaker of the Ohio House of Representatives and a likely gubernatorial candidate - to build his law practice and personal fortune.

Apart from his father, the individual who had the greatest impact on Taft's early career was Herbert Hoover. Their relationship began during World War I, when Taft served in the Food Administration and then assisted Hoover in providing food relief to eastern Europe. In l920 and l928 Taft enthusiastically supported Hoover's campaigns for the Republican presidential nomination. He also absorbed Hoover's approach to politics and government. As a state legislator and influential Cincinnati Republican, Taft championed a variety of moderate reforms designed to modernize government and enhance economic efficiency. By l930, he had a well-deserved reputation as a pragmatic urban politician who had struggled mightily, and with some success, to update Ohio's public institutions.

The Depression of the l930's turned Taft's world upside-down. It apparently did not hurt his law practice or his quest for a personal fortune - major worries of the previous decade - but it devastated his political circle. His father died in l930, he lost a reelection campaign for the state senate (to which he had been elected in l930 on a platform pledging tax reform) in l932, and his friend Hoover, together with other friends and associates who served in the Hoover Administration and the Federal Reserve, were discredited. For the first time in his life Taft was politically adrift. Yet he soon found a new focus in opposition to the New Deal, which would henceforth serve as a negative reference point for his political career.

Taft's response to the New Deal brought to the surface values and ideas that had been implicit in his earlier career. He had never devoted much thought or attention to the poor or unemployed. By l935 he endorsed federal relief programs (though not the New Dealers' management methods), unemployment insurance, old age pensions, and government regulated collective bargaining. He was sufficient liberal on these issues to win the backing of the AFL. He also supported government regulation of the banking and securities industries. He acknowledged that Roosevelt had addressed issues that previous leaders, notably Hoover, had overlooked. Yet such achievements paled beside Roosevelt's sins. Most outrageous were the President's misguided efforts to plan and direct economic activity, to centralize power and decision-making in Washington, and to extend the government's regulatory arm into virtually every facet of business life. For Taft, the NRA and the AAA epitomized what was wrong with the New Deal. If unchecked, they would inexorably lead to socialism, political tyranny, and perpetual depression.

Taft now had a cause and a goal, but a goal that could not be realized in Cincinnati or Columbus. Typically, he began his crusade by reorganizing the Cincinnati Republican organization. By l937 he was confident of his local base and ran for the U.S. Senate. His comparatively easy victory over the incumbent, Robert Bulkley, set the stage for his return to Washington, a national role, and ultimately, a quest for the presidency.

Volume 1 ends with Taft's Senate victory. Although three additional volumes will follow, this work demonstrates that the dull, owlish figure of early l950's newsreels and television broadcasts was not the Taft that Ohio politicos and voters had come to know. It is also an indispensable resource on Ohio in the l920's and l930's. Best of all, it proves that Ohio politics in the interwar years were not the exclusive province of Vic Donahey, Martin Davey, John W. Bricker, and others of their ilk.

Wunderlin has included a large selection of Taft family photos and an extensive bibliography. 

Robert A. Taft Memorial and Carillon
Photos of monuments to Taft, with a brief biographical sketch http://www.aoc.gov/cc/grounds/art_arch/taft.cfm

 

 

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Text of ADDRESS OF THE PRESIDENT TO THE NATION

THE WHITE HOUSE 

ADDRESS OF THE PRESIDENT TO THE NATION

 

Dec. 18, 2005

9:00 p.m. Eastern

 

Good evening.  Three days ago, in large numbers, Iraqis went to the polls to choose their own leaders—a landmark day in the history of liberty.  In coming weeks, the ballots will be counted, a new government formed, and a people who suffered in tyranny for so long will become full members of the free world.

                                     

This election will not mean the end of violence.  But it is the beginning of something new: constitutional democracy at the heart of the Middle East.  And this vote, 6,000 miles away, in a vital region of the world, means that America has an ally of growing strength in the fight against terror.  

 

All who had a part in this achievement—Iraqis, Americans, and Coalition partners—can be proud.  Yet our work is not done.  There is more testing and sacrifice before us.  I know many Americans have questions about the cost and direction of this war.  So tonight I want to talk to you about how far we have come in Iraq, and the path that lies ahead.

 

From this office, nearly three years ago, I announced the start of military operations in Iraq.  Our Coalition confronted a regime that defied United Nations Security Council Resolutions, violated a cease-fire agreement, sponsored terrorism, and possessed, we believed, weapons of mass destruction.  After the swift fall of Baghdad, we found mass graves filled by a dictator, we found some capacity to restart programs to produce weapons of mass destruction, but we did not find those weapons.

 

It is true that Saddam Hussein had a history of pursuing and using weapons of mass destruction.  It is true that he systematically concealed those programs, and blocked the work of UN weapons inspectors.  It is true that many nations believed that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction.  But much of the intelligence turned out to be wrong.  And as your President, I am responsible for the decision to go into Iraq. 

 

Yet it was right to remove Saddam Hussein from power.  He was given an ultimatum and he made his choice for war.  And the result of that war was to rid the world of a murderous dictator who menaced his people, invaded his neighbors, and declared America to be his enemy.  Saddam Hussein, captured and jailed, is still the same raging tyrant, only now without a throne.  His power to harm a single man, woman, or child is gone forever.  And the world is better for it. 

 

Since the removal of Saddam, this war, like other wars in our history, has been difficult.  The mission of American troops in urban raids and desert patrols fighting Saddam loyalists and foreign terrorists has brought danger and suffering and loss.  This loss has caused sorrow for our whole Nation, and it has led some to ask if we are creating more problems than we are solving. 

 

That is an important question, and the answer depends on your view of the war on terror.  If you think the terrorists would become peaceful if only America would stop provoking them, then it might make sense to leave them alone. 

 

This is not the threat I see.  I see a global terrorist movement that exploits Islam in the service of radical political aims, a vision in which books are burned, and women are oppressed, and all dissent is crushed.  Terrorist operatives conduct their campaign of murder with a set of declared and specific goals to de-moralize free nations, to drive us out of the Middle East, to spread an empire of fear across that region, and to wage a perpetual war against America and our friends.  These terrorists view the world as a giant battlefield and they seek to attack us wherever they can.  This has attracted al Qaida to Iraq, where they are attempting to frighten and intimidate America into a policy of retreat.

 

The terrorists do not merely object to American actions in Iraq and elsewhere—they object to our deepest values and our way of life.  And if we were not fighting them in Iraq, in Afghanistan, in Southeast Asia, and in other places, the terrorists would not be peaceful citizens—they would be on the offense, and headed our way.

 

September 11th, 2001 required us to take every emerging threat to our country seriously, and it shattered the illusion that terrorists attack us only after we provoke them.  On that day, we were not in Iraq, we were not in Afghanistan, but the terrorists attacked us anyway and killed nearly 3,000 men, women, and children in our own country.  My conviction comes down to this:  We do not create terrorism by fighting the terrorists.  We invite terrorism by ignoring them.  And we will defeat the terrorists by capturing and killing them abroad, removing their safe havens, and strengthening new allies like Iraq and Afghanistan in the fight we share.

 

This work has been especially difficult in Iraq—more difficult than we expected.  Reconstruction efforts and the training of Iraqi Security Forces started more slowly than we hoped.  We continue to see violence and suffering, caused by an enemy that is determined and brutal, unconstrained by conscience or the rules of war.    

 

Some look at the challenges in Iraq, and conclude that the war is lost, and not worth another dime or another day.  I don’t believe that.  Our military commanders do not believe that.  Our troops in the field, who bear the burden and make the sacrifice, do not believe that America has lost.  And not even the terrorists believe it.  We know from their own communications that they feel a tightening noose and fear the rise of a democratic Iraq. 

 

The terrorists will continue to have the coward’s power to plant roadside bombs and recruit suicide bombers.  And you will continue to see the grim results on the evening news.  This proves that the war is difficult—it does not mean that we are losing.  Behind the images of chaos that terrorists create for the cameras, we are making steady gains with a clear objective in view.

 

America, our Coalition, and Iraqi leaders are working toward the same goal—a democratic Iraq that can defend itself, that will never again be a safe haven for terrorists, and that will serve as a model of freedom for the Middle East.   

 

We have put in place a strategy to achieve this goal—a strategy I have been discussing in detail over the last few weeks. 

 

This plan has three critical elements. 

 

First, our Coalition will remain on the offense—finding and clearing out the enemy, transferring control of more territory to Iraqi units, and building up the Iraqi Security Forces so they can increasingly lead the fight.  At this time last year, there were only a handful of Iraqi army and police battalions ready for combat.  Now, there are more than 125 Iraqi combat battalions fighting the enemy, more than 50 are taking the lead, and we have transferred more than a dozen military bases to Iraqi control.

 

Second, we are helping the Iraqi government establish the institutions of a unified and lasting democracy, in which all of Iraq’s peoples are included and represented.  Here also, the news is encouraging.  Three days ago, more than 10 million Iraqis went to the polls, including many Sunni Iraqis who had boycotted national elections last January.  Iraqis of every background are recognizing that democracy is the future of the country they love, and they want their voices heard.  One Iraqi, after dipping his finger in the purple ink as he cast his ballot, stuck his finger in the air and said: “This is a thorn in the eyes of the terrorists.” Another voter was asked, “Are you Sunni or Shia?”  He responded, “I am Iraqi.”

 

Third, after a number of setbacks, our Coalition is moving forward with a reconstruction plan to revive Iraq’s economy and infrastructure, and to give Iraqis confidence that a free life will be a better life.  Today in Iraq, seven in 10 Iraqis say their lives are going well and nearly two-thirds expect things to improve even more in the year ahead.  Despite the violence, Iraqis are optimistic—and that optimism is justified.

 

In all three aspects of our strategy—security, democracy, and reconstruction—we have learned from our experiences, and fixed what has not worked.  We will continue to listen to honest criticism, and make every change that will help us complete the mission.  Yet there is a difference between honest critics who recognize what is wrong, and defeatists who refuse to see that anything is right. 

 

Defeatism may have its partisan uses, but it is not justified by the facts.  For every scene of destruction in Iraq, there are more scenes of rebuilding and hope.  For every life lost, there are countless more lives reclaimed.  And for every terrorist working to stop freedom in Iraq, there are many more Iraqis and Americans working to defeat them.  My fellow citizens:  Not only can we win the war in Iraq—we are winning the war in Iraq.  

 

It is also important for every American to understand the consequences of pulling out of Iraq before our work is done.  We would abandon our Iraqi friends and signal to the world that America cannot be trusted to keep its word.  We would undermine the morale of our troops by betraying the cause for which they have sacrificed.  We would cause tyrants in the Middle East to laugh at our failed resolve, and tighten their repressive grip.  We would hand Iraq over to enemies who have pledged to attack us and the global terrorist movement would be emboldened and more dangerous than ever before.  To retreat before victory would be an act of recklessness and dishonor, and I will not allow it.

 

We are approaching a New Year, and there are certain things all Americans can expect to see.  We will see more sacrifice from our military, their families, and the Iraqi people.  We will see a concerted effort to improve Iraqi police forces and fight corruption.  We will see the Iraqi military gaining strength and confidence, and the democratic process moving forward.  As these achievements come, it should require fewer American troops to accomplish our mission.  I will make decisions on troop levels based on the progress we see on the ground and the advice of our military leaders, not based on artificial timetables set by politicians in Washington.  Our forces in Iraq are on the road to victory, and that is the road that will take them home.

 

In the months ahead, all Americans will have a part in the success of this war.  Members of Congress will need to provide resources for our military.  Our men and women in uniform, who have done so much already, will continue their brave and urgent work.  And tonight, I ask all of you listening to carefully consider the stakes of this war, to realize how far we have come and the good we are doing, and to have patience in this difficult, noble, and necessary cause. 

 

I also want to speak to those of you who did not support my decision to send troops to Iraq:  I have heard your disagreement, and I know how deeply it is felt.  Yet now there are only two options before our country: victory or defeat.   And the need for victory is larger than any president or political party, because the security of our people is in the balance.  I do not expect you to support everything I do, but tonight I have a request:  Do not give in to despair, and do not give up on this fight for freedom. 

 

Americans can expect some things of me as well.  My most solemn responsibility is to protect our Nation, and that requires me to make some tough decisions.  I see the consequences of those decisions when I meet wounded servicemen and women who cannot leave their hospital beds, but summon the strength to look me in the eye and say they would do it all over again.  I see the consequences when I talk to parents who miss a child so much, but tell me he loved being a soldier, he believed in his mission, and Mr. President, finish the job.

 

I know that some of my decisions have led to terrible loss, and not one of those decisions has been taken lightly.  I know this war is controversial ,yet being your President requires doing what I believe is right and accepting the consequences.  And I have never been more certain that America’s actions in Iraq are essential to the security of our citizens, and will lay the foundation of peace for our children and grandchildren. 

 

Next week, Americans will gather to celebrate Christmas and Hanukkah.  Many families will be praying for loved ones spending this season far from home—in Iraq, Afghanistan, or other dangerous places.  Our Nation joins in those prayers.  We pray for the safety and strength of our troops.  We trust, with them, in a love that conquers all fear, and a light that reaches the darkest corners of the Earth.  And we remember the words of the Christmas carol, written during the Civil War: “God is not dead, nor [does] He sleep; the Wrong shall fail, the Right prevail, with peace on Earth, good-will to men.”

 

Thank you, and good night.

 

 

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Special Alert: Earle Subpoenas Critics

 

Dateline Washington, D.C. To: Our Readers Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle has subpoenaed two officials at the Free Enterprise Fund in connection with ads the conservative group has run criticizing him for his indictment of former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.). The ads attacked Earle, who has a history of indicting his political enemies in both parties, comparing him to an attack dog. The draft subpoena served to the organization demands that FEF communications director Todd Schorle and executive director O'Brien Murray testify in Texas at DeLay's change of venue hearing on Dec. 27 -- the Tuesday after Christmas. In the subpoena, Earle also demands "any and all documentation regarding the advertisements that have been produced or paid for by the Free Enterprise Fund, including any and all information regarding media buys by the Free Enterprise Fund for those advertisements that have run in Austin, Texas, and that may affect whether Thomas Dale DeLay may receive a fair trial in Travis County, Texas." FEF fears that Earle is trying to get its donor list with this document request, a spokesman said. Former U.S. Solicitor General Ted Olson, now an attorney in private practice, will represent FEF in the matter. FEF will be running its ads against Earle in Houston this weekend on the Sunday talk shows, including Meet the Press.

Sincerely,   Robert D. Novak

Evans-Novak Political Report is published by Eagle Publishing, Inc.
Editorial Offices: 1750 Pennsylvania Ave., N.W., Suite 1312 Washington, D.C. 20006	Business Offices: One Massachusetts Ave., N.W. Washington, D.C. 20001
Editor: Robert D. Novak Senior Political Reporter: David Freddoso Staff Writer: Christina Holder Managing Editor: Chris Field	Chairman: Thomas L. Phillips President: Jeffrey J. Carneal Group Publisher: Stephen A. O'Connor
Email the editors: Editors@EvansNovak.com

 

 

 

 

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Democrats move to supress the Barrett Report

From the Evans-Novak Political Report:

Barrett Report: Democrats have their own scandal brewing at the moment, but they are doing much better in covering it up than their Republican counterparts. At issue is the report by David Barrett, the last remaining U.S. independent counsel. Over ten years, Barrett has spent $21 million on the investigation of former Housing Secretary Henry Cisneros, who lied to FBI investigators about hush money paid to an ex-mistress.

The reason the report and the investigation have taken so long is that allies to Cisneros and the legal team of former President Bill Clinton at the powerhouse Washington law firm of Williams and Connolly have fought its progress in court at every step. Meanwhile, Clinton-sympathetic judges have sealed everything concerned with the case, including Barrett's report.

The report contains shocking allegations of high-level corruption in the Internal Revenue Service and Justice Department under Clinton, which Barrett found as Clinton aides monitored his investigation and sought to derail it in order to cover up the Cisneros matter. A regional IRS official had formulated a new rule enabling him to transfer an investigation of Cisneros to Washington to be buried by the Justice Department. Barrett's investigators found Lee Radek, head of Justice's public integrity division, determined to protect President Bill Clinton.

A recently passed appropriations bill, intended to permit release of this report, was altered by Democrats behind closed doors to ensure that its politically combustible elements never see the light of day. Democrats succeeded in inserting instructions into the bill's conference report that are very broad and will allow judges to continue suppressing the report. Three of the toughest Democrats in Congress -- Sen. Carl Levin, Sen. Byron Dorgan and Rep. Henry Waxman -- have been behind the effort to suppress, and they have done it effectively. The final language authorized the judges "to protect the rights of any individual named" in the report. With two out of three judges on a three-judge panel inclined to the Democrats, that means hardly anything out of Barrett's allegations will remain in the report made public. The bill was passed by Congress Nov. 18 and signed into law Nov. 30.

The only hope for the public seeing the report lies with Senate Finance Chairman Charles Grassley (R-Iowa), who may still try to force its release. Grassley would love to see a thorough investigation of the tax agency. Otherwise, Republican Congressional sources expect Section B of the report, dealing with the allegations of IRS-Justice corruption, to be eliminated in its entirety. The rest of the report will be so heavily redacted to obey the new Congressional language that it will be of scant interest to either ordinary citizen or legislator.

 

 

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Former Gang Leader Should Not Be Considered a Martyr

 
Black Activists Speak Out on the Execution of Stanley "Tookie" Williams

Former Gang Leader Should Not Be Considered a Martyr

With the execution of former gang leader and convicted murderer Stanley "Tookie" Williams virtually assured to occur tonight, members of the black leadership network Project 21 are calling on the public to remain calm as justice is administered.

They are also critical of those who seek to elevate Williams to hero status despite his conviction and his history steeped in violence.

"There can be no clemency for someone directly responsible for the murders of four innocent people and indirectly responsible for the deaths of possibly thousands more through his founding and leadership of one of the America's worst street gangs," said Project 21 member Mark Jordan. "Tookie Williams later became a published author, Nobel Peace Prize nominee and a celebrity among the opponents of capitol punishment. Unfortunately, similar opportunities were denied his victims. As a Christian, I welcome his repentance and pray for his soul. Repentance, however, does not release Tookie Williams from the consequences of his actions. This bill has finally come due."

Williams, a founder of the Crips street gang, was convicted and sentenced to death in 1981 for killing four people in 1979. His execution by lethal injection is scheduled for a minute after midnight at California's San Quentin State Prison on Tuesday, December 13.

"It must be acknowledged that Tookie Williams is a tragic example of a wasted life brought by irreversibly poor choices," said Project 21 member Mychal Massie. "It is tragic not only because of the harm he perpetrated on his community and himself, but because it is apparent he lacked the skills to rise above whatever circumstances are leveled as primary causal factors for personal decisions that ultimately led to his execution. His life should be remembered as a waste and not extolled in martyrdom and legend."

Project 21, a nonprofit and nonpartisan organization, has been a leading voice of the African-American community since 1992. For more information, contact David Almasi at (202) 543-4110 x11, email project21@nationalcenter.org or visit Project 21's website at http://postsnet.com/r.html?c=600896&r=600248&t=489777677&l=1&d=86611969&u=http%3a%2f%2fwww%2eproject21%2eorg%2fP21Index%2ehtml&g=0&f=86611971.

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Senator Barry Goldwater

Big World Blog is pleased to announce the latest inductee into the Conservative Heroes Hall of Fame....

Senator Barry M. Goldwater

 

Seantor Goldwater's 1964 Campaign for the Presidency kicked off the modern Conservative movement.  It made the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980 possible, and lead to conservatism becoming the dominant ideology in the Republican party, and the United States.

 

Senator Goldwater's biography follows....

 

GOLDWATER, Barry Morris, (1909 - 1998)

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Senate Years of Service: 1953-1965; 1969-1987
Party: Republican

GOLDWATER, Barry Morris, (father of Barry Morris Goldwater, Jr.), a Senator from Arizona; born in Phoenix, Maricopa County, Ariz., January 1, 1909; attended the Phoenix public schools, Staunton Military Academy, and one year at the University of Arizona at Tucson in 1928; began business career in 1929 in family mercantile business; during the Second World War entered active service in August 1941 in the United States Army Air Corps, serving in the Asiatic Theater in India, and was discharged in November 1945 as a lieutenant colonel with rating as pilot; organized the Arizona National Guard 1945-1952; brigadier general in the Air Force Reserve in 1959 and promoted to major general in 1962; retired in 1967 after thirty-seven years service; member of advisory committee, Indian Affairs, Department of the Interior 1948-1950; member of the city council of Phoenix 1949-1952; elected as a Republican to the United States Senate in 1952; reelected in 1958, and served from January 3, 1953, to January 3, 1965; did not seek reelection to the Senate in 1964; unsuccessful Republican nominee for President in 1964; elected to the United States Senate in 1968; reelected in 1974 and again in 1980, and served from January 3, 1969, to January 3, 1987; did not seek reelection in 1986; chairman, Select Committee on Intelligence (Ninety-seventh and Ninety-eighth Congresses), Committee on Armed Services (Ninety-ninth Congress); awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom on March 12, 1986; died May 29, 1998, at Paradise Valley, Ariz.; remains were cremated.

http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=G000267

 

 

 

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The Grisly Face of Abortion

—Albert Mohler

A poignant and chilling perspective on the issue of abortion has been provided by an article published in the Los Angeles Times. Reporter Stephanie Simon takes readers into the life and logic of one of the nation's most notorious abortion providers.

Simon focuses on Dr. William F. Harrison of Fayetteville, Arkansas. He has performed abortions for more than 20 years. Now, at age 70, Harrison estimates that he has terminated at least 20,000 pregnancies. Harrison's candor is shocking. He refers to himself as an "abortionist" and acknowledges, "I am destroying life."

Perhaps the most shocking dimension of Dr. Harrison's candor is the manner in which he cloaks his practice of abortion in religious language. In the Los Angeles Times article, he refers to women who have terminated their pregnancies as being "born again" through the experience.

This doctor's celebration of abortion is an atrocity. Well, we have been warned.

 

 

Albert Mohler is the host of The Albert Mohler Program.

Read Albert Mohler's blog on Crosswalk.

If this commentary was forwarded to you, sign up for you own free subscription.

 

 

 

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Justice Antonin Scalia

We are proud to announce the second inductee into the Big World Blog Conservative Heroes Hall of Fame:   Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia     The following biography and backgrounder is from the http://www.oyez.com/ website.  (The oyez site does a pretty good job, but they gloss over his 1961-67 stay in Cleveland OH as an attorney with a large Cleveland firm, stating simply "After a brief stint working with commercial law...".  I happen to be extremely proud that Justice Scalia practiced in my hometown, albeit before I was born. Biography Antonin Scalia, arguably the Court's most colorful jurist today, defies simple characterization. Indeed, the often controversial and combative justice draws out a wide range of sentiments from his peers and the public. Certainly, no one denies his immense legal brilliance and intellectual abilities. A Supreme Court observer once noted that if the mind were muscle and Court sessions were televised, Scalia would be the Arnold Schwartzenegger of American jurisprudence. Scalia also fills the role of the strong man. His confrontational style has startled many attorneys who have appeared before him. One litigator even described his action as those of a big cat batting around a ball of yarn. Scalia adds a dynamic personality to the Court. An author of recent study on the Court's conservative shift quipped that on a bench lined with solemn gray figures who often sat as silently as pigeons on a railing, Scalia stood out like a talking parrot. Scalia's own statements hint at his penetrating manner. When a reporter once commented favorably about Scalia's tuxedo, the ever-loquacious justice responded: "Ah yes, esteemed jurist by day, man about town by night." However, Scalia expresses nothing but humility about his job as a justice. At a conference before a crowd of law students, he admitted that he felt no sense of power whatsoever from his position. Instead, he agonized that his duty commonly forced him to end up doing things that: "I don't want to do." Although many have noted his charms, Scalia's outspoken advocacy has alienated and at times offended some of his colleagues. Once, after a long tirade concluding that affirmative action constituted the most evil fruit of a fundamentally bad seed, a slightly offended Sandra Day O'Connor expressed her displeasure with the comment: "But, Nino, if it weren't for affirmative action, I wouldn't be here." Scalia's habit of using rhetorical extremes--for example, labeling a colleague's refusal to agree with him as "perverse" and "irrational"--has also hurt his relations with fellow justices. These anecdotes serve to form a portrait of this remarkable justice. As Scalia's role changes from a spearhead to an anchor in the moderating Court, the ever-unpredictable justice continues to amuse, astonish, satisfy, and frighten many Court watchers. Antonin Scalia was born on March 11, 1936, in Trenton, New Jersey, as the only child of Eugene and Catherine Scalia. A second generation American, Scalia grew up with a strong Italian heritage explained by his father's foreign birth and his mother's immigrant upbringing. His father worked as a professor of Romance languages and his mother taught school. At age five, Scalia's father accepted a job at Brooklyn College so he and his family moved to Queens, New York. Called "Nino" by friends and family, Scalia first attended public school in Queens. He later enrolled in St. Francis Xavier, a military prep school in Manhattan, where his intellect and work resulted in a first place graduation. Scalia's academic success continued at Georgetown University where he completed his undergraduate studies and received an A.B. summa cum laude in history. Scalia also graduated from Georgetown as class valedictorian. Scalia went on to Harvard Law School. He served as editor of the Harvard Law Review and graduated magna cum laude. After graduation, Scalia traveled in Europe for a year as part of his Sheldon Fellowship from Harvard. He met and became engaged to Maureen McCarthy, a student at nearby Radcliffe College, during his law school years. They married in 1960 and have nine children. They share a strong mutual faith in Catholicism. After a brief stint working with commercial law, Scalia decided to teach law at the University of Virginia. After four years at Virginia, Scalia left teaching to pursue a career in government service. He started first as a general counsel for the Office of Telecommunication Policy under the Nixon administration. He successfully negotiated a major agreement between industry leaders to organize the growth of cable television. Between 1972 and 1974, Scalia chaired the Administrative Conference of the United States which studied ways to improve the efficiency of governmental processes. Richard Nixon nominated Scalia to head the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel just before the Watergate scandal forced Nixon to resign. President Ford assigned Scalia the task of determining legal ownership of the famous Nixon tapes and documents. Scalia decided in favor of Nixon, a reflection of his deep respect for the executive branch, though the Supreme Court soon ruled unanimously against this conclusion. When President Jimmy Carter entered the White House in 1977, Scalia left government service to work as a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think-tank in Washington D.C. Scalia also taught law briefly at the Georgetown University Law Center before moving to Chicago to teach at the University of Chicago Law School. His family had grown so considerably by then that Scalia had to buy a former fraternity house to accommodate them. He stayed in Chicago between 1977 and 1982, leaving once only briefly to teach at Stanford. Although he made good impressions among his academic peers, he did not dazzle anyone in his scholarly efforts. Some colleagues observed that Scalia's heart seemed set on active politics rather than academic law. Scalia served a brief period between 1981 and 1982 as the chairman of the American Bar Association's section on administrative law and the Conference of Section Chairs. He soon received another chance to return to public service. Reagan appointed him to the U.S. Court of Appeals for Washington D.C. in 1982 where Scalia developed his reputation for following judicial restraint and limited interpretation. His colleagues viewed him favorably and remembered him mostly for his constant willingness to engage in dialogue over matters of law. In 1986, President Reagan promoted William H. Rehnquist to the position of chief justice in the wake of the retirement of Warren Burger. To fill the vacancy created by Rehnquist's promotion, Reagan nominated Scalia to the Supreme Court. The political focus on Rehnquist's nomination drew all the attention away from Scalia. Thus, even though Scalia had a much more conservative record than Rehnquist, ironically Scalia's nomination passed unanimously and virtually uncriticized. Scalia took the oaths of office, becoming the youngest justice on the Court. His staunch conservatism and obvious intellect excited many conservative advocates who saw much promise in his confirmation. Scalia's pursuit of strict interpretation, judicial restraint, and bright-line distinctions in the law has led him to surprising votes in his years on the bench. He has puzzled or pleased many conservatives and liberals by voting consistently in favor of free speech. Scalia provided the critical fifth vote, much to the dismay of conservative activists, in striking down a Texas flag-burning prohibition. He also ruled that a St. Paul, Minnesota, prohibition against hate crimes violated freedom of speech. On the issue of reproductive rights, Scalia has labored mightily to strike down Roe v. Wade (1973). He has consistently rejected any notion of a right to abortion under the Constitution, arguing always that such matters constituted political decisions best decided by the popular branches of government. Scalia's future is secure yet uncertain. Many believe that the moderation of the Court in recent years through the nominations of President Clinton will increasingly paint Scalia into an extreme intellectual corner. His confrontational and argumentative style may also detach him further from the mainstream of the Court. However, regardless of his future role and position on the ever-changing Court, Scalia's legal genius and rhetorical powers will likely ensure that his voice and vision, if not always supported, will continue to be heard.

Background
 
 
Family
Birth Date 1936-03-11 00:00:00
Birth Place New Jersey
Childhood Location Queens, NY
Childhood Surroundings Urban
Children 9
Ethnicity Italian
Extended 1
Family Status Middle
Father Eugene Scalia
Father's Occupation Professor
Marriages Maureen McCarthy (1960)
Mother Catherine Panaro
Religion Roman Catholic
 
Education/Work/Legal
Bar Admission Ohio, 1962; Virginia, 1970
Experience Prior judicial experience: Judge, U.S. Court of Appeals (D.C. Cir.) 
Father's Office None
Federal Judicial Position(s) Judge, Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, 1982-86
Federal Political Position(s) General counsel, White House Office of Telecommunications Policy, 1971-72; chairman, Administrative Conference of the United States, 1972-74; assistant attorney general, 1974-77
Graduate Education Fribourg (Switzerland), Attended 1957
Law Practice Ohio, 1961-67
Law School Harvard, Graduated 1960
Law School Faculty Years University of Virginia, Professor 1967-74; University of Chicago, Professor 1977-82
Undergraduate Education Georgetown, B.A. 1957
 
Supreme Court
Age at Oath 50
Court Seat 10
Senate Vote 98-0
 
Literature
Writings "Vermont Yankee: The APA, the D.C. Circuit, and the Supreme Court" (1978); "Historical Anomalies in Administrative Law" (1985)"
 

 

 

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Joe Wilson: Bush Right to Attack Iraq

http://www.newsmax.com

With Carl Limbacher and NewsMax.com Staff

For the story behind the story...

Sunday, Dec. 4, 2005 12:13 p.m. EST

Joe Wilson, Iraq war supporter?

The darling of the anti-war left may be working overtime to bring down the Bush administration for "outing" his CIA wife, but Wilson said Saturday that the White House was right to go to war over Iraq's weapons of mass destruction.

"There was a lot of reason to be concerned about weapons of mass destruction in the hands of Saddam Hussein," he told WABC Radio's Mark Simone. "I always thought that he probably had chemical and biological weapons and biological precursors as well."

Wilson said his primary policy difference with President Bush wasn't over Saddam's WMDs, but rather on the question of "how to construct a policy that gets to the national security issue of disarming Saddam Hussein and does so at minimum risk to other legitimate U.S. interests both in Iraq and in the region."

But aside from that, Wilson said he cheered President Bush's decision to topple the Iraqi dictator, telling Simone: "When the president went up to the U.N. and got the [war] resolution unanimously passed at the U.N., nobody applauded louder than I did."

 

 

 

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President Discusses Strong Economic Growth and Job Creation

Dec. 4, 2005
The Rose Garden

10:45 A.M. EST

THE PRESIDENT: Thanks to good, old-fashioned American hard work and productivity, innovation, and sound economic policies of cutting taxes and restraining spending, our economy continues to gain strength and momentum.

Our economy added 215,000 jobs for the month of November. We've added nearly 4.5 million new jobs in the last two-and-a-half years. Third-quarter growth of this year was 4.3 percent. That's in spite of the fact that we had hurricanes and high gasoline prices. The unemployment rate is 5 percent. And that's lower than the average for the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s.

We have every reason to be optimistic about our economic future. I mean, when you think about the news that's come in, the jobs report, the recent report on strong economic growth, low inflation, strong productivity, lower gasoline prices, a strong housing market, increases in consumer confidence and business investment, our economic horizon is as bright as it's been in a long time.

The foundation for growth is strong. It's based upon low taxes and restrained government spending, legal reform, incentives for saving and investment.

The small business sector is vibrant. Most new jobs in America are created by the small business sector, and our entrepreneurs are doing well. We got the best work force in America -- in the world. People are productive, they're hardworking. Our ingenuity and know-how and -- is vibrant. This economy is in good shape.

We're not going to rest until every American who wants a job can find one. We're going to continue to work for good policies for our workers and our entrepreneurs. I'll continue to push for pro-growth economic policies, all aimed at making sure every American can realize the American Dream.

Thank you very much.

END 10:48 A.M. EST

 

 

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Republicanism in decline

Dec 3, 2005
by Tony Snow

 

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- When Democrats gibber about Republicans' writhing in a culture of corruption, they're on to something -- but not what they think. The Republican Party in Washington is in trouble not because it's overrun by crooks, but because it's packed with cowards -- and has degenerated into a caricature of the party that swept to power 11 years ago promising to take on the federal bureaucracy and liberate the creative genius of American society.
 
The collapse stems from the simplest and most natural of causes, the survival instinct. Within months of seizing power in 1995, Republicans began backing away from Big Ideas, from tort reform to the necessary overhaul of the Social Security system. They started consulting pollsters to assay "correct" issues and positions. They played it safe -- or so they thought.

 Over time, imagination-grabbing ideas melted away. Gone was the Reaganite breadth of vision, and in its place stood the musty idol of Incumbency. Republicans drew the wrong morals from the decline and fall of Newt Gingrich. They thought his boldness got him in trouble, and chose to crib plays from the Bill Clinton playbook -- tacking left, at least oratorically, so as to appease, rather than confront, their critics.

 Hence, George W. Bush's "compassionate conservatism" -- a slogan that exceeded skeptics' worst expectations. That phrase, aimed at reassuring suburban white moms and queasy left-wing Republicans, became a white flag on the core issue of government size and might. Bush insiders even began boasting about "big government" conservatism -- oblivious to the fact that big government does not conserve or preserve; it crushes and digests, devouring institutions that challenge its supremacy.

 Leaders in the Party of Lincoln stopped talking about people, and started talking about programs and expenditures. They justified head-snapping shifts in policy by claiming the need to take issues "off the table." The multi-trillion dollar Medicare "reform" is a case in point. It was designed less to save a system than to deny Democrats a talking point. Yet, the only things Republicans really took off the table were their moral authority and the loyalty of their partisans.

This helps explain one of the great ironies of the age. We live in what ought to be an era of Republican triumphalism. The president's one reliable bit of domestic-policy conservatism, his tax-cut agenda, has succeeded brilliantly. The most recent Commerce Department figures peg the third quarter economic growth rate at a sizzling 4.3 percent -- despite the ravages of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita and the oil shocks that followed.

 

Republicans have won the battle over whether centralized bureaucracies can eradicate poverty, or perform social services more efficiently than private or volunteer operations. Throughout the country, the same patterns appear: Where elected officials govern with a light touch and without imposing onerous tax and regulatory burdens, prosperity flourishes -- and people flock to the scene. "progressive" states, on the other hand, are becoming empty husks, with more rigid class distinctions than in any other section of the country.

 The GOP also wins big on values. Virtually every time the ACLU files a lawsuit, Democrats lose supporters. Despite these advantages, however, the GOP founders. Its Washington potentates simply refuse to embrace the party's ideals or successes (including the war). They have forgotten the most important rule of political survival: If you want to remain an incumbent for long, you don't jettison your principles. You act on them.

 When House Speaker Denny Hastert broke arms to secure votes for a pork-packed highway bill, calling the legislation a "jobs bill," it was an embarrassment. When the president signed a campaign-finance bill he called unconstitutional, he seemed to lack not only conviction, but vision.

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- When Democrats gibber about Republicans' writhing in a culture of corruption, they're on to something -- but not what they think. The Republican Party in Washington is in trouble not because it's overrun by crooks, but because it's packed with cowards -- and has degenerated into a caricature of the party that swept to power 11 years ago promising to take on the federal bureaucracy and liberate the creative genius of American society.
 
The collapse stems from the simplest and most natural of causes, the survival instinct. Within months of seizing power in 1995, Republicans began backing away from Big Ideas, from tort reform to the necessary overhaul of the Social Security system. They started consulting pollsters to assay "correct" issues and positions. They played it safe -- or so they thought.

 Over time, imagination-grabbing ideas melted away. Gone was the Reaganite breadth of vision, and in its place stood the musty idol of Incumbency. Republicans drew the wrong morals from the decline and fall of Newt Gingrich. They thought his boldness got him in trouble, and chose to crib plays from the Bill Clinton playbook -- tacking left, at least oratorically, so as to appease, rather than confront, their critics.

 Hence, George W. Bush's "compassionate conservatism" -- a slogan that exceeded skeptics' worst expectations. That phrase, aimed at reassuring suburban white moms and queasy left-wing Republicans, became a white flag on the core issue of government size and might. Bush insiders even began boasting about "big government" conservatism -- oblivious to the fact that big government does not conserve or preserve; it crushes and digests, devouring institutions that challenge its supremacy.

 Leaders in the Party of Lincoln stopped talking about people, and started talking about programs and expenditures. They justified head-snapping shifts in policy by claiming the need to take issues "off the table." The multi-trillion dollar Medicare "reform" is a case in point. It was designed less to save a system than to deny Democrats a talking point. Yet, the only things Republicans really took off the table were their moral authority and the loyalty of their partisans.

 Fortunately, irate constituents roused some conservatives from their dogmatic slumbers. Young Republicans rebelled against the apostasy of their elders, especially in the matter of the federal budget, and state parties seized the initiative on everything from spending limitations to school choice.

 Capitol Hill Republicans now admit their Democratic colleagues don't want peace -- they want the Alamo. So the GOP is fighting back. Hastert approved calling the bluff of anti-victory Democrats last week by demanding a floor vote on the idea of vamoosing Iraq immediately. He scored another triumph this week by restoring the good name of the National Christmas Tree.

 Who knows, he may even figure out the Paradox of Incumbency. Politicians who run just to protect incumbency may save their seats, but only by destroying their party's heart and soul. If you really want to build lasting power in politics, you need to forget about mere incumbency -- and remember the principles that got you elected in the first place.

Tony Snow is the host of the 'Tony Snow Show' on Fox News Radio.

 

 

 

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GOP Congress Earmarks $4 Million for Leftist Pro-Illegal Alien Group

Immigration & Foreign Affairs

by Amanda B. Carpenter,

Human Events http://www.humaneventsonline.com/article.php?id=10623

Thanks to a congressional earmark, an open-borders advocacy group that pushes for driver’s licenses, free in-state tuition and healthcare for illegal aliens and bilingual requirements for state agencies and ballots is slated to get $4 million in new taxpayer money to add to the more than $30 million it has received from various federal agencies since 1996.

The National Council of La Raza (NCLR), Spanish for “the race,” will get its latest grant through an appropriations bill passed by Congress on November 18. The Joint Explanatory Statement of HR 3058, available on the House’s Rules Committee website lists 1,100 plus earmarks in the bill, including La Raza’s grant under the Housing and Urban Development Department’s Self-Help and Assisted Ownership Programs. Under this account La Raza will receive four times as much as the Special Olympics, which won a $1-million earmark.

La Raza is the nation’s largest Hispanic advocacy organization. It was adamantly opposed to the REAL ID Act, which will prevent states from issuing driver’s licenses to illegal aliens if they want them to be usable for federal purposes. It is also opposed to the CLEAR Act, which would grant state and local law enforcement agencies that wish to do so the authority to enforce federal immigration laws.

Spontaneous Spending

The Capital Research Center (CRC), which rates public interest groups on a scale of 1 to 8, with 1 equaling “radical left” and 8 equaling “free market right,” gave La Raza a rating of 2, the same rating it gave People for the American Way and NARAL Pro-Choice America. CRC reports that La Raza’s net assets totaled nearly $52 million in 2003.

La Raza Senior Vice President Charles Kamasaki explained in an e-mail that his group typically gets government grants three different ways: The largest awards probably come from competitive bidding processes for grants and contracts said Kamasaki. But other grants include congressional earmarks—such as the one in this year’s Housing appropriation—and discretionary funds allocated from agencies such as the Department of Health and Human Services, the Environmental Protection Agency and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, which have all provided tax dollars to NCLR.

NCLR also employs an appropriations lobbyist who works to secure federal earmarks for the group. Tax forms available from CRC also reveal that La Raza spends about $1 million per year on lobbyists, fundraising and web design.

The $4-million grant in this year’s housing bill, which is the fifth in a series of similar congressional earmarks, wasn’t expected, Kamaski said. “This was a somewhat unusual year in that this earmark was not specifically requested,” he explained. He also said the funding is targeted primarily toward a La Raza subsidiary that has made over $40 million in loans to NCLR affiliates and other community based groups such as charter school facilities, heath clinics, day-care centers and affordable housing developments.

One person who would like to know how La Raza’s $4-million earmark got into the bill is Rep. Charlie Norwood (R.-Ga.) who, with Rep. Pete Sessions (R.-Tex.), sponsors the CLEAR Act. Jennifer Hing, communication director for Rep. Joe Knollenberg (R.-Mich.) who is chairman of the House Appropriations subcommittee that handled the bill, said the Senate inserted the earmark.

Norwood said he was told the money was stricken from the House version of the bill because NCLR has not used the money for housing they received last year. “But no matter what they did or didn’t do last year, we ought not to send taxpayer’s money to people who absolutely advocate perhaps using that money for this country not to follow the law of the land and not to secure our country’s borders,” he said. Said Norwood: “It sounds like they have a sugar-daddy in the Senate.”

One possible culprit is Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D.-Nev.) who sits on the Senate Appropriations subcommittee that handled the bill carrying the earmark. In 2001, Reid sent a letter to the Senate Appropriations Committee requesting $5 million for La Raza’s housing programs. That same year Reid also received NCLR’s Capital Award for “his commitment to advance legislation priorities of the Latino Community.” In gratitude, Reid told NCLR, “La Raza is like the biblical David, fighting all these Goliaths.”

Reid’s office did not respond to calls asking whether he inserted or even supported the earmark.

Despite the significant federal assistance La Raza has received, Cecilia Munoz, the group’s vice president for policy, has rebuked the Bush Administration for not catering to the needs of immigrants. “We all know there is a wing of the Republican Party that will never like anything that treats immigrants well,” she said in June. “Any attempt by the President to move in the direction of those folks is going to be viewed as hostile to the Latino community.”

Commenting on the irony that a Republican-controlled Congress would send to a Republican President a spending bill that included a multi-million-dollar subsidy for a left-wing group, a GOP aide told Human Events: “We Republicans excel at funding or otherwise supporting our political adversaries.”

Miss Carpenter is Assistant Editor for HUMAN EVENTS.

 

 

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Feb. 4 Elections In New Orleans Are Postponed

By Doug Simpson

Associated Press

BATON ROUGE, La., Dec. 2 -- Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco (D) agreed Friday to postpone New Orleans's Feb. 4 elections for mayor and City Council for up to eight months because of the damage from Hurricane Katrina.

Blanco's decision came hours after Louisiana's top elections official recommended the delay, saying polling places have not been rebuilt and thousands of voters remain scattered across the country.

Secretary of State Al Ater said he needs to ensure that poll workers are in place and polling places and absentee voting systems ready for an election he called "the most important in that city's life."

"The new administration, the new council, the new people that will be elected will be in charge of making decisions affecting billions and billions and billions of dollars and hundreds of thousands of lives," Ater said.

He said the election should be held no later than Sept. 30.

The highest-profile race is for mayor. Incumbent C. Ray Nagin, who has been both criticized and praised for his handling of the Katrina disaster, has not announced whether he will seek reelection but is expected to do so.

Nagin released a statement Friday saying he had hoped for February elections because "voting during our regular cycle would further bring a sense of normalcy and empowerment to our citizens" but adding: "I respect the secretary of state's decision as I am sure it is based upon his concern for holding a fair election."

Officials expect a huge increase in the number of absentee voters because so many of the city's 273,000 registered voters have moved elsewhere.

Ater laid much of the blame for the delay on the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which he said has not provided any of the $2 million his office requested to repair voting machines damaged in the Aug. 29 storm and to upgrade New Orleans's absentee voting system.

Ater also said FEMA took until this week to respond to his October request for addresses of Louisiana residents displaced by the hurricane, so they can be informed of how to vote from out of state.

"Our job would have been a lot easier if FEMA had been more forthright and more forthcoming," Ater said.

A FEMA spokeswoman did not return a call for comment.

Ater said holding the city elections Sept. 30 would save $3 million because the state will vote that day on two constitutional amendments.

 

 

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AG says Texas remap approval not political

Democrats hoping leaked Justice memo will help their case before Supreme Court

Dallas Morning News

12:00 AM CST on Saturday, December 3, 2005

By TODD J. GILLMAN and MICHELLE MITTELSTADT / The Dallas Morning News

WASHINGTON – Attorney General Al Gonzales said Friday that the Justice Department was not motivated by politics when it approved a controversial Texas congressional redistricting plan in 2003, overriding objections within the Civil Rights Division that minority voters would be harmed.

Texas Democrats ousted from Congress last year under the plan orchestrated by U.S. Rep. Tom DeLay have long suspected that Bush administration political appointees within the Justice Department brushed aside concerns by career attorneys.

On Friday, the Democrats brandished a leaked 73-page Justice memo that they said proved their case, reflecting unanimous opposition to the redistricting plan by the eight Justice career staffers who extensively analyzed a Texas map designed to increase Republican clout in Congress.

"It's just too bad that unfortunately you can't get justice out of the Justice Department these days," said former U.S. Rep. Martin Frost of Dallas, one of the five Democrats who lost re-election bids under redrawn district lines.

The memo provided fresh ammunition to Democrats who long complained that the mid-decade redistricting was an egregious exercise in gerrymandering. But even they acknowledged that the document may not help them as they try to persuade the Supreme Court to take up the matter.

Mr. Gonzales, who was not attorney general when the Justice Department approved the plan, defended the decision as an appropriate one by "people that have been confirmed by the Senate to exercise their own independent judgment."

"The fact that there may be disagreement somewhere within the ranks doesn't mean that the ultimate decision is the wrong decision," he said, noting that the Texas plan was upheld by a three-judge panel and resulted in the addition of a black to the 32-member House delegation.

Staff disagreement

Mr. Gonzales' insistence that politics played no role wasn't shared by some Civil Rights Division veterans. They say the Texas case, joined by the department's recent approval of a Georgia voter ID law later rejected by the court, suggests a troubling trend of politics trumping Voting Rights Act considerations.

"The decisions are politically driven," said American University law professor Richard Ugelow, a 29-year Civil Rights Division veteran who joined the exodus of career staff from Justice in recent years.

William Yeomans, a senior voting-rights expert who left the Justice Department this year, said: "It's clear who benefits from those decisions."

He and other division veterans say it is highly unusual for political appointees to override a unanimous recommendation by career lawyers.

"It's probably not an overstatement to say it's unprecedented for that kind of overruling of the career staff to occur," said David Becker, who left the division last April after seven years.

Democrats in Austin and Washington sought to use the memo to their advantage.

The leaked memo represents a "smoking gun pointing to efforts, led by Bush political appointees and Tom DeLay, to systematically cripple the voting rights of minorities," said state Sen. Leticia Van de Putte of San Antonio, a Democratic leader in the Senate.

Election law experts said the document is unlikely to provide the Democrats any tangible help, in part because the Voting Rights Act doesn't permit a challenge to the Justice Department's decision-making once a map is approved.

Still, some Democrats were hopeful that a front-page Washington Post story – which also ran on the front of The Dallas Morning News – on the memo might provide some boost with the Supreme Court. This week was the fifth time since mid-October that the justices put seven related Texas redistricting cases on their weekly calendar to discuss whether the court should take up the matter.

"Supreme Court justices read," said Chris Bell of Houston, one of the congressmen who lost his job last year, "and they already have been hearing about the DeLay indictment and the corruption involving the campaign financing that was first stage of the redistricting process. And now, to read that the fix was in at the Department of Justice, I don't think sits well with anybody."

The lead Democratic lawyer in the case, Gerald Hebert, said he hopes the memo ends up as part of the record the high court will review.

"The process was corrupt, and we never really had a chance to convince the Justice Department to block this map," he said.

Redistricting expert Nathaniel Persily, a law professor at the University of Pennsylvania, said it was certainly plausible for Justice lawyers to approve the map because overall it did boost minority representation, with white Democratic lawmakers the main targets.

"No one broke the law here ... for all the nefarious partisanship behind the re-redistricting," he said.

But U.S. House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi demanded an independent inquiry into what she called the "contemptible politicization of the Justice Department to rubberstamp Congressman Tom DeLay's illegal redistricting scheme."

Whatever direct impact the memo has in court, election law experts said it could spur Congress to consider changing how the federal government enforces civil rights law.

Bad memories

Richard Gladden, a Denton lawyer who represents a Democratic voter challenging the new Texas map, recalled huddling with other lawyers on the eve of trial before a three-judge federal panel in Austin. Arguments started Dec. 11, 2003, the day before Justice Department lawyers submitted their memo to superiors.

Within a day or two, Mr. Gladden recalled, word had filtered to Austin that the staff lawyers objected to the Texas map – though no one realized until the memo surfaced this week that the recommendation was unanimous – and lawyers batted around strategies for handling an announcement.

But the argument phase of the trial ended Dec. 19 with no word from the Justice Department. Mr. Gladden was driving home to Denton later that day when the news alert came over the radio. He was stunned.

Lawyers who opposed redistricting recalled getting a chilly reception when they made their case at the Justice Department.

"The career people were listening politely, and the political people were condescending and dismissive. They were really arrogant," said Nina Perales, regional counsel for the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, who spent an hour in fall 2003 at Justice headquarters.

"Nobody said to me 'You're wasting your time,' " she said, but "I understood the dynamic. ... I've always felt really disappointed and carried that with me since that meeting."

'Legal decision'

Justice Department spokesman Eric Holland said officials there "do not and will not play political games. Our focus is the law. We made a legal decision."

Republicans picked up six seats in redistricting, which flipped control of the Texas delegation in the House from 17-15 in favor of Democrats to a 21-11 GOP edge.

Ousted Democrat Nick Lampson of Beaumont, who is now challenging Mr. DeLay, called the memo proof of an "unethical, partisan power grab the likes of which this state and this country have never seen."

DeLay spokesman Kevin Madden brushed off the allegation. "Ultimately the decision was up to a three-judge panel, and there's no indication they didn't make it based on the facts and the law," he said.

At the White House, deputy press secretary Dana Perino said that – as far as she could determine two years after the fact – there had been no White House "participation nor advice" in the Texas redistricting case at the Justice Department.

Staff writer G. Robert Hillman and Jim Fry of the Belo Capital Bureau contributed to this report.

E-mail tgillman@dallasnews.com and mmittelstadt@dallasnews.com

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