Borking Scalia
He’s waited long enough, and Florida's finally over.

By John J. Miller & Ramesh Ponnuru
November 16, 2001 1:00 p.m.

ow that the media finally has declared last year's presidential election over, it's time for Senate Democrats to quit punishing a key Bush administration nominee because he is the son of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia.

Six months ago, Eugene Scalia was nominated to become the top lawyer at the Department of Labor. One month ago, a Senate committee approved his nomination. Today, however, he still languishes without a floor vote. If one were held, he would probably win narrow approval — he made it through committee because Jim Jeffords (I., Vt.) voted for him.

In a particularly sleazy move, Ted Kennedy and Chris Dodd are now charging that Scalia "seriously misrepresented his record" in his confirmation testimony — something nobody said at the time, when such liberal senators as Paul Wellstone were praising his character and Kennedy himself was calling him "an outstanding lawyer" with whom he merely had policy disagreements. Kennedy and Dodd don't back up the charge.

Nor do the other charges have merit. Scalia has represented employees in labor-law cases, contrary to the Democrats. While Kennedy and Dodd claim that Scalia is weak on sexual harassment-insert your own joke here-the fact is that his work on the subject has been favorably cited by Democratic judicial appointees Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Guido Calabresi. It is true that Scalia opposed President Clinton's proposed ergonomics regulations; so did a majority of the Congress, which is why they failed. If anyone is misrepresenting Scalia's record, it appears to be Kennedy and Dodd.

It is hard to believe that Scalia would suffer this treatment if he had a different last name. Senate Democrats and their union allies must at last accept what most of their friends in the media have conceded: George W. Bush won more votes in Florida, the Supreme Court did not snatch victory from Al Gore, and the current administration has the right to staff itself with capable people.

In Other Scalia News...
Father Scalia reveals what he'd do if there were a popular vote on national I.D. cards: "Personally, I'd probably vote against it."