Lott Strikes Back
Payback for Pickering.

By Ramesh Ponnuru, NR Senior Editor
March 15, 2002 3:15 p.m.

rent Lott warned the Democrats that there would be consequences if they rejected the nomination of Charles Pickering to a federal appellate court. Now he's starting to deliver. Lott is placing a hold on one of Tom Daschle's nominees to the Federal Communications Commission, a Daschle staffer. (The Wall Street Journal incorrectly reports today that Lott's hold is on a Securities and Exchange Commission nominee.)

In addition, NRO has learned that Lott is rejecting a $1.5 million funding request from the Senate Judiciary Committee. The committee wants the money to investigate intelligence failures leading to September 11. Lott notes that the House and Senate Intelligence Committees are already looking into that.

In a letter to Connecticut Democrat Chris Dodd, Lott complains that the Judiciary Committee has not held hearings on eight of the circuit-court nominees President Bush submitted last May. "Holding hearings and votes on judicial nominees is arguably the most important responsibility of the Senate Judiciary Committee," he writes. "I am hard pressed to understand why the committee, under its current leadership, should be entrusted with further responsibilities and resources when they have failed to take action on their primary responsibilities."

Special funding requests have to be approved by the senior Democrat and Republican on the Rules Committee-Chris Dodd and Mitch McConnell. McConnell will now reject the request.

"I'm not going to let go of it for a long time," said Lott.

Mississippi Turning
Pickering is from Mississippi, and his supporters felt that Democrats were playing on stereotypes about the state. Georgia Democrat Zell Miller said this after the vote: "This action may very well elect a Republican governor in Mississippi, and it will certainly make it even more difficult for Democratic candidates to be successful in the South."

Texas Too
The vote is also an issue in the Texas Senate race, where Republican candidate John Cornyn is using it to highlight his support of the nomination of Texan Priscilla Owen. One possible Democratic opponent, Ron Kirk, has pledged to block "conservative jurists who oppose Democratic rights and principles, including a woman's right to choose."

Edwards Watch
Having proved his bona fides to the feminists by joining in the campaign against Pickering, will Senator John Edwards, the North Carolina Democrat, now vote for D. Brooks Smith, another Bush appellate-court nominee? Smith has been considered likely to go through. Voting for him will help burnish Edwards's reputation for being independent, thoughtful, etc. It will also make his opposition to Pickering look principled in retrospect. He'll be able to say he doesn't do the liberal lobbies' bidding all the time-only when it counts.