Senate Panel Bickers Over Bork Hearings

A routine meeting of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which must decide whether to recommend that the Senate confirm Robert H. Bork to the Supreme Court, erupted into partisan bickering Thursday over President Reagan’s controversial nominee.

Reagan, who nominated the conservative Bork on July 1, has urged that the Senate confirm him before the Supreme Court opens its 1987-1988 session on Oct. 5. But the Judiciary Committee does not plan to open its confirmation hearings until Sept. 15.

“Our citizens do not understand why this process is taking so long,” said Sen. Strom Thurmond (R-S.C.), opening the attack minutes after the Judiciary Committee convened for its regular weekly business meeting.

‘Make a Mockery’

Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) responded that Republicans would “make a mockery of the whole process” by cutting short the time to investigate Bork’s background and views.

And committee Chairman Joseph R. Biden Jr., a Democratic presidential aspirant, defended his handling of the nomination, which had been attacked earlier this week by Sen. Bob Dole (R-Kan.), a Republican candidate.

Democrats, Biden said, intend to be “fair” in conducting the hearings and have not attempted to stall. “What we’re getting,” he said, is not the “Biden stall” but the “Dole dribble.” Dole, he charged, “is being his typical, partisan, cheap-shot self.”

The intensity of the Senate’s approach to Bork has increased in recent weeks. Even relatively routine matters, such as the exact date on which the hearings will start, have become hotly contested questions, and the Judiciary Committee’s processing of other business has largely ground to a halt.

Before the Bork hearings begin, the committee is unlikely to do more than complete work on a few uncontested judicial nominations and the nomination of U.S. District Judge William S. Sessions to head the FBI.

Believed Non-Controversial

Biden said he would like to finish hearings on Sessions’ nomination, which is expected to be non-controversial, before the Bork hearings begin. After the Senate returns from its August recess, the committee will have one week before the Bork hearings start, and handling Sessions at that time would be “the easiest and quickest way,” he said.

Committee business that has been put on hold includes the confirmation to the federal appeals court in San Francisco of Bernard Siegan, a professor at the University of San Diego School of Law, whose views are considered even more controversial than Bork’s. Also delayed is a major effort to strengthen the federal law banning discrimination in housing.

According to Senate staff members, the tension surrounding the Bork nomination has grown in response to several factors: the presidential aspirations of key players, including Dole, Biden and Judiciary Committee member Paul Simon (D-Ill.), the high-level pressure on the nomination from lobbying groups and the unexpectedly high level of interest by the public.