Tuesday, June 2, 2009

Danforth: Enough's Enough On Harsh Hearings

Former Sen. John Danforth has seen the ugly side of the Supreme Court confirmation process -- he fought bitterly for his friend Clarence Thomas against intense opposition from Senate Democrats and liberal groups almost two decades ago. Now, he says, it's time for the acrimony to end.

In an interview with National Journal's Kirk Victor, the Missouri Republican discussed the lessons of Thomas' 1991 proceedings and why the GOP should take the high road with Sonia Sotomayor now. Asked if Sotomayor's ethnicity has complicated things for Senate Republicans, Danforth said:

Yes, I think it has. But I would hope that even beyond that, Republicans would take the position that we have been witnesses to the worst kind of confirmation processes and that the time has come to stop it. It is just not worth doing it. We have seen how plain mean it can get and destructive of human beings. The fact that it is an Hispanic woman [creates] a political reason to have a more low-key approach to it, but I would hope that that would be a standard we would seek anyhow.

That wouldn't rule out substantive questions about the court and its role, Danforth said:

I would think that if Republicans did it right, they would have some well-designed, non-repetitious questions on how do you see the role of the judiciary; what do you understand original intent to mean; what do you understand stare decisis to mean; what do you understand the role of courts in deciding issues, narrow or broad. Those are all interesting questions on the role of the court. But I think that's as far as they should go.

Read the full interview here.