White, Ashcroft clashed on abortion
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LIBBY QUAID
Jan. 13, 2001 | WASHINGTON (AP) -- Nine years ago, then-Missouri Gov. John
Ashcroft had enough support in the Legislature to pass a ban on most
abortions, but young Democratic House member Ronnie White outmaneuvered him
and killed the measure.
The clash was the start of a contentious relationship that crested in 1999
when Ashcroft succeeded in persuading the Senate to keep White, now a
Missouri Supreme Court judge, off the federal bench.
Now it's White's turn. As the star witness at Ashcroft's confirmation hearing
that begins Tuesday, he will help determine whether Ashcroft becomes U.S.
attorney general.
White was the first judicial nominee since conservative jurist Robert Bork in
1987 to suffer defeat on the floor of the U.S. Senate. Ashcroft insisted the
judge was "pro-criminal." Because the judge is black, critics accused
Ashcroft of racism, a charge that has resurfaced since he was nominated by
President-elect Bush on Dec. 22. The NAACP and other minority groups are
ardently opposing his nomination.
Ashcroft's allies counter that he has a lengthy record of support for
minority nominees, both as governor, when Ashcroft named eight blacks to the
state bench, and in the Senate, where he voted for 26 of 28 minority
nominees.
In 1992, while governor, Ashcroft had a promise from Democratic leaders in
the Missouri Legislature to give his abortion bill a fair hearing. He had a
one-vote majority on the House Criminal and Civil Justice Committee, chaired
by White.
But when members assembled for what was to be a no-vote work session -- and
with two abortion foes absent -- White unexpectedly allowed a vote. The
measure failed, 8-7, remaining dead even after White allowed a no-show to
weigh in, making the vote 8-8.
Ashcroft was upset, recalled state Rep. Quincy Troupe, an ally of White's
from St. Louis.
"I think he was insulted that Ronnie White outsmarted him," Troupe said.
Troupe believes Ashcroft sought revenge when White was nominated to the
federal bench, but Rich McClure, Ashcroft's former chief of staff, said the
senator's opposition had nothing to do with the abortion bill.
"I have no doubt that he did not even remember Judge White's handling of an
abortion bill when he was considering his judgeship," McClure said. "Senator
Ashcroft did what was right, in his view."
Ashcroft's objections were muted in 1997 when President Clinton nominated
White to a judgeship in the Eastern District of Missouri in St. Louis,
through renomination and two confirmation hearings.
Then, in August 1999, after the Judiciary Committee had given White a second
thumbs-up, Ashcroft turned up the heat.
White was soft on crime, even "pro-criminal," Ashcroft said, because the
judge voted 14 times to reverse the death penalty -- more than one-quarter of
the first-degree murder cases that came before him.
While Ashcroft mentioned abortion during White's confirmation hearings, his
reference to their Statehouse dispute was obscure. Some "were injured by the
nominee's manipulation of legislative procedures," Ashcroft said, and White's
"failure to be evenhanded" contributed to Ashcroft's vote against him.
The emergence of the law-and-order issue with White coincided with Ashcroft's
efforts to portray his re-election challenger, Democratic Gov. Mel Carnahan,
as an ineffective crime-fighter.
Ashcroft's aides eventually turned up a compelling story in the case against
White -- and Carnahan, who had appointed White in 1994 to the Missouri Court
of Appeals and in 1995 to the state's high court.
White offered the lone dissent when fellow jurists upheld the sentence of
James Johnson, who had killed three law officers and a county sheriff's wife.
The sheriff, Kenny Jones, dove into the controversy and circulated a petition
at a Missouri Sheriffs Association convention. White's nomination "was a slap
in the face," Jones said in an interview. He also may testify at Ashcroft's
confirmation hearing.
With the sheriffs and the Missouri Federation of Police on his side, Ashcroft
told his colleagues, "When the law enforcement community raises a red flag
about a judicial nomination, as they did in this case, the Senate should
listen."
In the uproar over White's defeat, new details emerged.
First, it was Ashcroft who courted opposition from law enforcement groups,
not the other way around. He sought help from the police federation and the
larger Missouri Police Chiefs Association, which declined to get involved.
Next, White's defenders did their own analysis and concluded he voted to
reverse death sentences only slightly more often than his six colleagues,
five of whom were appointed by Ashcroft.
White had harsh words for Ashcroft on the only occasion he has discussed his
scuttled appointment. In September, during the senator's re-election
campaign, White said at a Missouri Bar Association forum: "The person who led
the opposition to my nomination had the most corrosive and vicious attacks
for minority nominees."
Ashcroft's campaign responded that Carnahan "and his liberal judge" had
opened "the shameful race-baiting phase of the Carnahan campaign."
Carnahan died in a plane crash Oct. 16, but voters still chose him over
Ashcroft. Carnahan's widow, Jean Carnahan, was appointed to fill the Senate
seat.
Associated Press
