Democrats Won’t Budge on Bush’s Judicial Nominee

Senate Democrats said Tuesday that they would block a vote on President Bush’s nomination of a conservative Latino lawyer to one of the nation’s most powerful federal courts unless they get more information about his legal views, setting up a big political fight with the White House.

Democrats announced they had enough votes to sustain a filibuster against the nomination of Miguel Estrada to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. They wrote to Bush demanding internal Justice Department documents and other information about Estrada’s positions on key issues.

In response, Senate Republicans threatened to keep the chamber in session all night, all week -- and even cancel a scheduled recess next week -- in hopes of wearing down Democratic opposition. And the White House called on Democrats to stop talking and start voting on the nomination.

“He has the votes necessary to be confirmed,” Bush told a group of House members Tuesday. “Yet a handful of Democrats in the Senate are playing politics with his nomination.”

But for now, the prospect is for the Senate to be consumed by the partisan skirmishing over a lawyer whose confirmation would make him one of the highest-ranking Latino judges.

Estrada, a Washington-based partner in the Los Angeles law firm of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, worked in the U.S. solicitor general’s office during the administrations of Bush’s father and President Clinton. He was born in Honduras, immigrated to the United States as a teenager and graduated from Harvard Law School in 1986. The American Bar Assn. gave him its highest rating after reviewing his qualifications for the federal bench.

However, because he has never been a judge, he has not compiled a detailed record of court opinions that lay out his legal philosophy. In his confirmation hearing, he was terse in many answers, frustrating Democrats who complained he was not forthcoming about his views on such issues as abortion rights and the death penalty.

Democrats said they were fighting Estrada’s nomination not because of his ideology, but because they believe his reticence amounted to an affront to the Senate and its ability to give informed consent to a presidential nomination.

“If this precedent succeeds, we can expect every single nominee to come forward with the same stonewalling attitude, with the same approach that they don’t have to provide us information,” said Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.).

Republicans said Estrada’s answers were satisfactory, and that many previous nominees deemed it inappropriate to say how they would rule in particular cases. They accuse Democrats of opposing Estrada because they feared the political ramifications of promoting a conservative Latino to a position that is frequently a steppingstone to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Senate Judiciary Chairman Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah) said Democrats were being pushed by the party’s left wing into the rare use of a filibuster to block a judicial nominee. The last time the tactic was successfully used to block a court appointment was in 1968. “I’m worried about the radicals taking over this institution,” Hatch said.

With the Senate made up of 51 Republicans, 48 Democrats and one independent who usually votes with the Democrats, the GOP has enough votes to confirm Estrada’s nomination. But if Democrats filibuster, it would take 60 votes to end it and bring the nomination to a vote.

After weeks of intraparty debate, Democrats emerged from a closed-door meeting Tuesday and announced they had more than the 41 votes needed to sustain a filibuster. The information they requested in the letter to Bush included memoranda the nominee wrote while working in the solicitor general’s office -- documents Democrats believe will give a clearer picture of his thinking.

“For the Senate to make an informed decision about Mr. Estrada’s nomination, it is essential that we receive the information requested and answers to these basic legal questions,” Daschle said in his letter to Bush, which was co-signed by Sen. Patrick J. Leahy of Vermont, ranking Democrat on the Judiciary Committee.

The administration has so far refused to provide the documents. Seven former solicitors general -- four Democrats and three Republicans -- wrote to the Judiciary Committee opposing the Democratic request, saying the exchange of ideas among attorneys would be inhibited if they feared their views would not remain private.

“Any attempt to intrude into the office’s highly privileged deliberations would come at the cost of the solicitor general’s ability to defend vigorously the United States’ litigation interests,” they wrote.

Ashley Snee, a White House spokeswoman, said Tuesday the material sought by the Democrats was an “unprecedented request for internal, deliberative documents” dating to Estrada’s tenure as a staff attorney.

A few Democrats are opposed to a filibuster, saying it was unwise to block a president’s choice unless there is some “smoking gun” against the nominee -- especially given other pressing global and economic issues.

“Look at what we have facing us: We’re on orange alert [for terrorism], people are stockpiling water and duct tape, we may soon be at war with Iraq,” said Sen. John B. Breaux of Louisiana, one of the Democrats who support Estrada. To have the Senate stuck on a judicial nomination at this point, Breaux said, “is not the right thing.”

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Times staff writer James Gerstenzang contributed to this report.