Novak on Religion and Judicial Selection
Robert Novak has a column on the role of religion in the judicial selection process over at Townhall.com. Here is a taste:
- At the center of this increasingly noisome debate is the aggressive Sen. Charles Schumer. Elected from New York in 1998 by ousting Republican Alfonse D’Amato in a tumultuous campaign, Schumer has grown in confidence and assertiveness as he nears virtually unopposed re-election next year with a massive war chest. Sen. Edward M. Kennedy is the backroom mastermind of the Democratic judicial strategy, but Schumer is its point man. It is he who has taken the debate into previously forbidden religious territory.
On May 1 in a Senate Judiciary Committee session, Schumer raised religious questions in connection with the nomination of lawyer J. Leon Holmes as district judge from Arkansas. Holmes has the support of his state’s two Democratic senators, but not Chuck Schumer. The New Yorker argued that the conservative religious views of Holmes, a devout Catholic, disqualified him because of disagreements interpreting the separation of church and state. Schumer contended that “religious beliefs cannot dictate government policy, even though they can infuse our values.”
That was preparation for Schumer’s opposition to Alabama Attorney General Bill Pryor for the appellate bench, another conservative Catholic who is the most recent of the filibustered Bush nominees. In the Judiciary Committee June 11, Schumer said Pryor’s beliefs “are so well known, so deeply held that it’s very hard to believe that they’re not going to influence” him on the bench. Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California, another Judiciary member, also has cited the “deeply held beliefs” standard.