Conservatives Urge Action on Judges, Not Flag Burning

Republican activists want their allies in the Senate to revive the debate over President Bush's judicial nominees to mobilize the party's core voters for the November elections.

Republicans risk losing one or both houses of Congress unless the base is motivated to vote, the activists warned at a news conference in Washington. They urged the Senate majority leader, Bill Frist of Tennessee, to focus on judicial nominees instead of a proposed constitutional amendment to ban flag burning that is set for debate this month.

"Our constituents will not be put off being told that the Senate has more pressing business than judicial nominees," the chief counsel of Concerned Women for America, Jan LaRue, said. Unless Senate Republicans confirm more judicial nominees, "come November 8, the votes they want may not be there."

The flag-burning amendment is more a symbolic issue than judicial nominations, which have concerned voters in past elections since Bush took office, said Manuel Miranda, a former Senate Republican aide who heads the Third Branch Conference.

"Appealing only with symbolic issues, is, in essence, patronizing," Mr. Miranda told reporters. Still, he defended Dr. Frist's doomed effort to pass legislation to ban same-sex marriage because that issue "is very much linked to our concern for the judiciary."

David Keene, chairman of the American Conservative Union, said a debate on judges is a good way for Republicans to distinguish themselves from Democrats in November.

Conservatives are more likely to vote "if they are happy, active and energized," he told reporters.

Dr. Frist has tried to avoid battles over nominees who have generated the most controversy. After vowing earlier this year to seek a vote on Terrence Boyle, nominated to the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, he has ducked questions about plans to seek Senate votes on Mr. Boyle and another nominee for the same Richmond-based court, William Haynes II.

Mr. Boyle, 60, a federal trial court judge in North Carolina, is accused of breaking a conflict-of-interest law by purchasing stock in General Electric Company while overseeing a case involving an employee in a pension dispute with the company. Mr. Boyle ruled in favor of the company. Those allegations emerged after Dr. Frist had announced his plan to seek a Senate vote on Mr. Boyle, who Mr. Bush first nominated five years ago.

Mr. Haynes, 48, the Defense Department's general counsel, faces questions from Republicans and Democrats alike over his role in drafting the policies for detaining and interrogating suspected terrorists.

Critics say those policies blur legal prohibitions on abuse of prisoners, leading to the torture of captives at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. About a dozen soldiers have been prosecuted for the alleged mistreatment.

Activists last week urged Senator Lindsey Graham, a Republican of South Carolina, to drop his objections to Mr. Haynes and permit a vote by the Judiciary Committee on his nomination.

Mr. Graham, acknowledging he has concerns about Mr. Haynes's role in drafting the detention and interrogation policies, has declined to say how he would vote on the nomination.

In a June 8 letter to the activists, he said he took "very seriously" the criticisms by two retired Navy judge advocate generals who opposed Mr. Haynes. "I am troubled that very distinguished military leaders have expressed strong opposition to the Haynes nomination," the letter said.

Mr. Miranda said he wouldn't oppose a second confirmation hearing for Mr. Haynes, who was questioned by the committee before the revelations about Abu Ghraib.

Mr. Haynes's nomination is still in the Judiciary Committee, where Democrats say they would ask for another hearing before the panel votes to send the appointment to the full Senate.

"Jim Haynes does not condone torture," Republican activist Pat Woodward Jr., told reporters. Opponents "are trying to blame Jim Haynes for this administration's policies in the war on terror."

More than 60 activists, including Paul Weyrich of Coalitions for America and Donald Wildmon of the American family Association, have signed a letter urging Republican leaders to drop the flag-burning debate in favor of judicial nominations.