1/30/01 7:45 p.m.
Ashcroft Wins Round One
A lone Democrat sides with the attorney general-designate.

By Byron York, NR’s White House correspondent

n the end, 10 to 8 was a world away from 9 to 9. For the last week, the Bush White House and Senate Republicans have feared that the Senate Judiciary Committee, divided evenly between nine Republicans and nine Democrats, might split down the middle on the nomination of John Ashcroft to be attorney general. A 9-9 vote would not have stopped the nomination, but it would have emboldened Democrats as they fought Ashcroft on the Senate floor — and likely narrowed his potentially slim margin of approval.

That worst-case scenario has now been avoided — just barely — thanks to Russell Feingold. Late Tuesday afternoon, the Wisconsin Democrat broke with his party and joined all nine Republicans in voting yes on Ashcroft. The other Democrat who was thought to be a possible yes vote, Feingold's fellow Wisconsin senator Herb Kohl, stayed with his party in the 10 to 8 vote.

"The Senate has nearly uniformly sought to avoid disapproving nominees because of their philosophy alone, and I believe we should not begin to do so now," Feingold said as he explained his vote. Republicans surely did not agree with the positions of many Clinton nominees, Feingold continued, and yet all the former president's cabinet nominees were approved by the Senate. Now, he would do the same for George W. Bush and the GOP. "When I vote for John Ashcroft in committee," Feingold said, "I am reaching out to the new administration, to my Republican colleagues, and especially those on the opposite side of this committee."

As sweet as that must have sounded to Republican ears, the GOP couldn't take too much comfort in Feingold's vote. After revealing his intention, Feingold devoted much of his speech to criticizing the attorney general-designate. Ashcroft's opposition to the nomination of Ronnie White to the federal bench, Feingold said, was "an extremely sorry chapter in Senator Ashcroft's long public record." The same for his opposition to the ambassadorial nomination of James Hormel. And Feingold virtually demanded that the administration repay him for his vote by re-nominating White and making permanent Clinton's recess appointment of federal judge Roger Gregory.

Still, he voted yes. For his part, Kohl — whose sober, serious questions had led some Republicans to hope he might also support Ashcroft — voted no. "I believe that [Ashcroft's] views are far out of the mainstream of American life," Kohl said, causing groans among Ashcroft supporters. "He wanted us to accept that he could do his job almost like a robot without imposing his views." Kohl went on to explain that he was particularly swayed by the White and Hormel affairs; Ashcroft's opposition to both men, Kohl said, was a "frightening preview" of what Ashcroft might do as attorney general.

Beyond Kohl and Feingold, there were no surprises — and a lot of predictable speeches. Delaware Democrat Joseph Biden may have raised some eyebrows by discounting feminist criticisms of Ashcroft — "I believe that if [Ashcroft] believed there was any violation of the law regarding abortion clinics, then John Ashcroft would enforce the law," Biden said — but more than made up for it by opposing Ashcroft solely on the basis of civil rights. "I don't believe his heart or his intellect are in it to aggressively enforce the civil rights laws as they exist," Biden said, delivering an impassioned attack in the guise of tortured deliberation. Perhaps even more serious, Biden said, Ashcroft might make African-Americans feel uneasy. Ashcroft, Biden continued, had made many statements that showed "demonstrably bad judgment in terms of communicating to ten percent of the American population that he cares about them."

On the other side, some of Ashcroft's defenders were ready for a fight — committee chairman Orrin Hatch began the hearing by denouncing the "narrow left-wing interest groups," "left-wing activists," and "special interest groups with a narrow political agenda" that opposed the Ashcroft nomination — but others were strangely subdued. "I've made mistakes in votes that I've cast before," said Arizona Republican Jon Kyl in defending Ashcroft's opposition to some Clinton-era nominees. "In the heat of the moment, you can work yourself up into opposing someone." Then, addressing Democrats, he said, "In a year, in two years, in four years...will you look back on the things that were said about the nominee with some regret?"

That hardly seems to matter now. The Senate will spend the next couple of days debating the nomination on the floor, and Democrats say the closeness of the committee vote confirms their contention that there is nationwide opposition to Ashcroft. "This is basically a 9-9 decision," Senator Ted Kennedy told reporters after the vote, counting Feingold's reservations as if they actually amounted to a no vote. They didn't, and the vote wasn't 9-9, but it was still close. Ashcroft's opponents are urging Democrats to keep it that way, to make the final Senate vote as close as possible in order to exact the maximum possible leverage over him when he becomes attorney general. They just might succeed.