[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 153 (Wednesday, November 5, 1997)]
[Senate]
[Pages S11709-S11711]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
NOMINATION OF MARGARET MORROW TO BE U.S. DISTRICT JUDGE FOR THE CENTRAL
DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA
Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, although I am delighted that the Senate
will today be confirming James S. Gwin as a Federal district court
judge, the Republican Leader has once again passed over and refused to
take up the nomination of Margaret Morrow. Ms. Morrow's nomination is
the longest pending judicial nomination on the Senate Calendar, having
languished on the Senate Calendar since June 12. The central district
of California desperately needs this vacancy filled, which has been
open for more than 18 months, and Margaret Morrow is eminently
qualified to fill it.
Just last week, the opponents of this nomination announced in a press
conference that they welcomed a debate and rollcall vote on Margaret
Morrow. But again the Republican majority leader has refused to bring
up this well-qualified nominee for such debate and vote. It appears
that Republicans have time for press conferences to attack one of the
President's judicial nominations, but the majority leader will not
allow the U.S. Senate to turn to that nomination for a vote. We can
discuss the nomination in sequential press conferences and weekend talk
show appearances but not in the one place that action must be taken on
it, on the floor of the U.S. Senate. The Senate has suffered through
hours of quorum calls in the past few weeks which time would have been
better spent debating and voting on this judicial nomination.
The extremist attacks on Margaret Morrow are puzzling--not only to
those
[[Page S11710]]
of us in the Senate who know her record but to those who know her best
in California, including many Republicans.
They cannot fathom why a few Senators have decided to target someone
as well-qualified and as moderate as she is.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that a recent article from the
Los Angles Times by Henry Weinstein on the nomination of Margaret
Morrow, entitled ``Bipartisan Support Not Enough For Judicial
Nominee,'' be printed in the Record at the conclusion of my statement.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
(See exhibit 1.)
Mr. LEAHY. This article documents the deep and widespread bipartisan
support that Margaret Morrow enjoys from Republicans that know her. In
fact, these Republicans are shocked that some Senators have attacked
Ms. Morrow. For example, Sheldon H. Sloan, a former president of the
Los Angeles County Bar Association and an associate of Gov. Pete
Wilson, declared that: ``My party has the wrong woman in their
sights.''
Stephen S. Trott, a former high-ranking official in the Reagan
administration and now a Court of Appeals judge wrote to the majority
leader to try to free up the Morrow nomination, according to this
article Judge Trott informed Senator Lott.
I know that you are concerned, and properly so, about the
judicial philosophy of each candidate to the federal bench.
So am I. I have taken the oath, and I know what it means:
follow the law, don't make it up to suit your own purposes.
Based on my own long acquaintance with Margaret Morrow, I
have every confidence she will respect the limitations of a
judicial position.
Robert Bonner, the former head of DEA under a Republican
administration, observed in the article that: ``Margaret has gotten
tangled in a web of larger forces about Clinton nominees. She is a mere
pawn in this struggle.'' I could not agree more.
Mr. President, it is time to free the nomination of Margaret Morrow
from this tangled web that some extremists are trying to weave. It is
time to debate and vote on the nomination of Margaret Morrow.
Mr. President, again, I am pleased we will take up the nomination of
Judge James Gwin. But we are, once again, overlooking the nomination of
Margaret Morrow. Ms. Morrow's nomination is the longest pending
judicial nomination on the Senate Calendar, and is strongly supported
by both Republicans and Democrats. The Senate ought to have the courage
and the honesty to either vote for her or against her.
[From the Los Angeles Times, Nov. 3, 1997]
Exhibit 1
Bipartisan Support Not Enough for Judicial Nominee
(U.S. Senate: Margaret Morrow's appointment is stalled despite backing
across political spectrum. Some say she is victim of effort to downsize
courts)
(By Henry Weinstein)
If ever there was an unlikely candidate to be the target
for a militant campaign against ``judicial activism,'' it
would be Los Angeles lawyer Margaret Mary Morrow.
An honors graduate of Harvard Law School, 47, was the first
female president of the California Bar Assn., where she
worked to strengthen the state's attorney discipline system.
A commercial litigation specialist, Morrow is a partner in
the Los Angeles office of Arnold & Porter, one of the most
venerable firms based in the nation's capital. Her clients
have included First Interstate Bank, McDonnell Douglas, TWA
and The Limited.
President Clinton, on the recommendation of Sen. Barbara
Boxer (D-Calif.), tapped Morrow for a federal trial judgeship
in May 1996. She quickly won bipartisan support--including
endorsements from judges appointed by presidents Ronald
Reagan and George Bush and governors George Deukmejian and
Pete Wilson.
``Margaret is superbly well qualified,'' said Los Angeles
lawyer Robert C. Bonner, who has served as a federal judge
and head of the Drug Enforcement Administration during Bush's
presidency.
She also received the highest possible rating--``very well
qualified''--from the American Bar Assn.'s judicial
evaluation committee. By late 1996, after a perfunctory
hearing, Morrow cleared the committee unanimously. But the
nomination died, along with several others in the
congressional slowdown that inevitably occurs in election
years.
Clinton renominated Morrow on Jan. 7. Within three weeks,
trouble emerged and her nomination remains in limbo even
though she was approved a second time on June 12 by the
Judiciary Committee, whose chairman, Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah),
said in late September that he would push for a swift vote
and support her.
Much to the surprise of her backers, particularly her
Republican supporters, Morrow has become the subject of the
sort of intense partisan attacks generally reserved for
nominees with a long record of activism such as civil rights
lawyer Thurgood Marshall or a trail of controversial
decisions such as Judge Robert Bork.
Indeed, the story of Morrow's confirmation battle is in
significant measure a tale about the fissures within the
Republican Party about judicial nominations.
One conservative federal judge, speaking on condition of
not being identified, said that, in reality, the campaign
against Morrow has nothing to do with her qualifications or
her views, but rather is part of a ``conscious plan to
downsize'' the federal courts in the western United States
with the goal of remaking them after Clinton's presidency
ends.
Echoed Bonner: ``Margaret has gotten tangled in a web of
larger forces about Clinton nominees. She is a mere pawn in
this struggle.''
The campaign against Morrow began with a Jan. 28 op-ed
piece in The Washington Times by Thomas L. Jipping, director
of the militantly conservative Free Congress Foundation's
Judicial Selection Monitoring Project.
Jipping contended that Morrow was likely to become an
``activist judge,'' who improperly would attempt to legislate
a political agenda from the bench. Soon, Republican senators
John Ashcroft of Missouri and Jeff Sessions of Alabama, both
staunch conservatives, new members of the Judiciary Committee
and Jipping allies, joined the attack.
Since that time, Morrow has been back to the committee for
another hearing and answered three sets of questions in
writing--including highly unusual questions about her
positions on many California ballot initiatives during the
past 10 years. She also told the committee she would adhere
strictly to precedents and would have no problem applying the
death penalty.
Last Wednesday, the effort to derail Morrow's nomination
escalated. Ashcroft and Sessions announced that they would
spearhead further opposition to Morrow and said more than 100
``grassroots'' organizations, including the National Rifle
Assn. and the Traditional Values Coalition, had joined the
campaign against her.
The coalition was assembled while Ashcroft had placed ``a
hold'' on the nomination, which under Senate protocol had
prevented it from coming to the floor for a vote. On
Wednesday, at a news conference announcing the coalition, he
said he now favors a roll-call vote.
Ashcroft and Sessions pointedly reminded their colleagues
that several organizations in the coalition would be
``scoring'' the votes of senators on the nomination.
Morrow's adversaries contend that she would be a ``judicial
activist'' on the bench. ``She views the law as an engine for
social change . . . and as a means of imposing public policy
from the courts on the rest of us,'' Ashcroft asserted.
Morrow declined to respond. ``I do not believe it is
appropriate for me to comment while my nomination is pending
before the Senate,'' she said in a brief telephone interview
at week's end.
Morrow has previously denied such characterizations. For
example, in June 1996, she told the Judiciary Committee: ``I
view the role of a judge as being the resolution of disputes
that come before . . . him or her for resolution. So I would
look to the facts of the case. I would attempt to apply the
law as I understand it to those facts. And I would not seek
to expand them or otherwise to use any particular case as a
reason for articulating new constitutional rights or
otherwise expanding what I understand to be the existing
law.''
Boxer and Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), the ranking minority
member on the Judiciary Committee, came to Morrow's defense
last week. Boxer described her as ``the epitome of
mainstream'' and Leahy charged that a coalition of
conservative activists is using Morrow as ``a fund-raising
vehicle'' for their campaign to reduce the power of
federal judges.
Perhaps more importantly, several staunch Republicans said
the accusations against Morrow are ludicrous. ``My party has
the wrong woman in their sights,'' declared Sheldon H. Sloan,
former president of the Los Angeles County Bar Assn. and a
close ally of Wilson. ``There is no flag burning for Margaret
Morrow,'' said Sloan, describing the nominee as both an
outstanding lawyer and ``a church-going, basketball mom.''
A large number of prominent Republicans have backed the
nominee in writing--highlighted by rare letters of support
from three conservative U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals
judges--Pamela A. Rymer, Cynthia Holcomb Hall and Stephen S.
Trott, State Supreme Court Justice Marvin R. Baxter and state
appeals court justices Roger Boren, H. Walter Croskey and
Charles S. Vogel, all appointed by Republican governors, also
have weighed in on Morrow's behalf, as have Los Angeles Mayor
Richard Riordan, then-state
[[Page S11711]]
Assembly Majority Leader James E. Rogan of Glendale and
Orange County Dist. Att. Michael R. Capizzi.
In an effort to unclog the nomination, Trott, who earlier
served as a high-ranking official in the Justice Department
under President Reagan, recently wrote to Senate Majority
Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.).
``I know you are concerned, and properly so, about the
judicial philosophy of each candidate to the federal bench.
So am I. I have taken the oath, and I know what it means:
follow the law, don't make it up to suit your own purposes.
Based on my own long acquaintance with Margaret Morrow, I
have every confidence she will respect the limitations of a
judicial position.''
In their letters, some of Morrow's backers have sought to
clearly establish their bona fides with conservative
senators.
``I am a lifelong Republican from Orange County,
California,'' Costa Mesa attorney Andrew J. Guilford wrote
Hatch. ``I have never voted for a Democrat in any
presidential campaign. . . . I did not believe Anita Hill, I
am happy that Justice Clarence Thomas is on our Supreme Court
and I regret that [Robert] Bork is not on our Supreme Court.
It is partly my concern over the unfair destruction of Judge
Bork's judicial career that causes me to enthusiastically
endorse Margaret Morrow.''
Backers of Morrow cite her intellect, character and record
of public service. As president of the Los Angeles County Bar
Assn., she instituted a voluntary program urging attorneys to
provide at least 35 hours of free legal services yearly for
the poor. And she was a member of the commission that drafted
an ethics code for Los Angeles city government.
Morrow's advocates also assert that her speeches and
writings have been distorted beyond recognition by her foes,
particularly one sentence in a 1988 article on the initiative
process that is cited as prime evidence of her ``activist''
proclivities.
In the Los Angeles Lawyer magazine article, Morrow wrote:
``The fact that initiatives are presented to a `legislature'
of 20 million people renders ephemeral any real hope of
intelligent voting by a majority.''
The article was written in the wake of one of the most
expensive initiative campaigns in state history, highlighted
by five complicated measures dealing with insurance and
attorney's fees. At the time, many charged that that
television advertising about the measures was misleading,
prompting widespread calls for reform.
Morrow's article did not call for abolition of initiatives.
The article noted that use of the initiative had escalated
dramatically in the 1980s, discussed possible reforms of the
initiative and legislative processes and urged lawyers to
play a role in improving government.
Croskey, an appointee of Deukmejian, said he was stunned
that the article was cited as evidence that Morrow would
improperly legislate from the bench.
``She was making a profound and useful criticism of the
initiative process and how it could be improved,'' Croskey
said. ``To metamorphose that into the conclusion that she is
a judicial activist has no foundation.''
On Friday, Croskey faxed a letter to Lott urging the
senator to bring the nomination to the floor for a vote. But
it seems unlikely that will happen before Congress adjourns
in the next few weeks. Lott, who has the power under Senate
procedure to hold up the nomination indefinitely, said a few
days ago that he felt no pressure to take any action on
judicial nominees during the remainder of the year.
The White House declined to comment last week on Morrow's
nomination.
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