Pro-Family Groups Roundly Applaud Pickering Appointment
by Jody Brown and Chad Groening
January 19, 2004
(AgapePress) - It is a move conservatives had hoped for more than two years ago. On Friday President Bush exercised his presidential power in appointing Judge Charles Pickering to a seat on the Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans while Congress is in recess.The Mississippi judge is one of several Bush appointees that has been held up by a Democrat-led filibuster in the U.S. Senate. Sources tell Associated Press that Bush was growing impatient with the standoff, and finally decided to use the recess appointment procedure to install Pickering to a term that will be valid to January 2005. Pickering told AP he was grateful to the president for his "continued confidence and support," and that he is looking forward to serving on the Fifth Circuit.
Pro-family leaders across the country are applauding the president for finally taking decisive action in support of his nominees. Tony Perkins of the Washington, DC-based Family Research Council says it was a "bold and necessary move" by the chief executive.
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Tony Perkins |
"Left-wing groups and their allies on the Senate Judiciary Committee have worked overtime these past three years to besmirch the character and record of Mr. Pickering," the FRC president says. "Charles Pickering is exactly the type of judge this country needs on our federal bench."Perkins says he is hopeful this move by Bush will show "extremist" groups such as Planned Parenthood and People for the American Way -- as well as Democratic senators like Chuck Schumer and Ted Kennedy -- that their "obstructionist tactics" to block the president's desire to place qualified jurists on the federal bench.
"At a time when our courts at every level are overstepping their bounds by sanctioning same-sex marriage and infanticide, and stripping us of our religious freedoms, President Bush has taken the first step to ensure that our federal courts are filled with jurists who understand their role is to follow the Constitution -- not reinvent it," Perkins says.
Chuck Colson of Prison Fellowship calls the White House's move "a win for the president, a win for Pickering, and most importantly a win for justice."
"The actions of Pickering's opponents in the Senate haven't been merely bad politics," Colson says in a printed statement, "they have been tantamount to religious discrimination and blatant injustice." He adds that the recess appointment was "the right move not just for Judge Pickering, but also for our judicial process."
Dr. Don Wildmon, chairman of the Mississippi-based American Family Association, says an injustice has been rectified.
"I think this is probably one of the better moves that President Bush has made, for a number of reasons," Wildmon explains. "He's bypassing the handful of liberals in the Senate that's been blocking every [nomination] that he's made -- and [Pickering] is a good man, a deserving man, a good judge. An injustice had been done to this man; it's been rectified now."
In the process, Wildmon says, "at least Bush has shown some backbone -- and that's good news."
Gary Bauer of the Campaign for Working Families believes Pickering's appointment -- which he says was "long overdue" -- raises the stakes in the upcoming Senate elections. "It is unfortunate that the president was forced to take such action," Bauer says, alluding to what he calls "the liberal stranglehold" over federal courts. "But we are pleased to see him do so."
Bauer adds that he is hopeful the president's "surprise move" signals a renewed commitment by the White House to "spotlight the Senate's liberal obstructionists who are abusing Senate procedures and running roughshod over the Constitution."
American Life League, the largest pro-life educational organization in the United States, also has words of praise for President Bush. A spokesman for ALL says it is clear the White House "has realized that the militant, pro-abortion zealots in the Senate will neither listen to reason nor recognize the limit to their own power in this matter." The group is hopeful the president will appoint more pro-life judges to the federal bench before Congress returns at noon on Tuesday.
