Panel OKs Kennedy, 14-0; Fast Senate Approval Seen

The Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday unanimously approved the nomination of Judge Anthony M. Kennedy to the Supreme Court, clearing the way for a confirmation vote by the full Senate and an end to the paralysis of a high court apparently reluctant to make major rulings.

The senators, voting 14 to 0 to recommend his confirmation, heaped praise on the Sacramento federal appeals court judge and several contrasted him to previous nominee Robert H. Bork, who was rejected by the panel.

Senate Majority Leader Robert C. Byrd (D-W.Va.), a committee member, said that he hopes to schedule a Senate vote for confirmation as early as Friday or next Monday. However, a committee official said later that the ballot probably would not occur until next Tuesday, after distribution of a printed committee report.

The committee’s vote was taken in an atmosphere of good will and camaraderie sharply different from the scene of the Bork hearings, which featured civil rights groups and Democratic critics exchanging angry allegations with the first nominee’s staunch Republican supporters.

Both Republican and Democratic senators described Kennedy, 51, as a reasonable and compassionate jurist who assesses each case on its merits and without applying a strict, preconceived ideology.

While the conservative Bork was “on the extreme side of interpreting the Constitution,” Kennedy is more moderate and “in the mainstream” of American thought, said committee member Dennis DeConcini (D-Ariz.).

Kennedy’s views “reflect the core values of our constitutional system of government,” said Committee Chairman Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.), a leader in the fight that brought Bork’s defeat in October.

No mention was made of Judge Douglas H. Ginsburg, President Reagan’s second nominee for the post, who withdrew in November amid disclosures that he had smoked marijuana while a college law professor.

Reagan, Meese Praise Vote

Reagan and Atty. Gen. Edwin Meese III praised Wednesday’s vote and called for quick Senate action on Kennedy.

“I look forward to a positive vote soon . . . that will bring this distinguished and scholarly legal mind to the court,” Reagan said in a statement.

Kennedy is expected to play a pivotal role on the court, as did his predecessor, Lewis F. Powell Jr. The nine-member court is evenly split between its conservative and liberal wings, and since Powell’s retirement last summer has split 4 to 4 on several cases and delayed ruling on others.

The court has deadlocked on such sensitive issues as whether a teen-ager should be able to get an abortion without telling her parents and whether the State Department may deny visas to foreign political activists who want to visit the United States.

Court Balance Watched

Kennedy, in his 12 years on the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, has been regarded as a moderate conservative and legal observers are watching anxiously to see whether he will give the Reagan Administration its long-sought vote to tip the court’s balance to the right.

Some liberals on the committee, including Sens. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) and Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.), said that in voting for Kennedy they were nonetheless troubled by some of his decisions that involved the rights of minorities, women and the handicapped. They noted that the nominee also had acknowledged past membership in three private clubs that did not accept women and may have blocked minorities from membership.

But Kennedy and Leahy pointed out that the judge had told the committee he has tried to become more sensitive to the rights of minorities and that he believes civil rights laws “must be interpreted generously, not grudgingly.”

‘Eminently Qualified’

Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), a leader of the committee’s conservative wing, said that Kennedy is “eminently qualified” for the court by virtue of his experience as a judge, an attorney and a professor of constitutional law.

“He does not have any political agenda and will not attempt to write his own preferences into law,” Hatch said.