Nominee Is a Man the Right Loves, the Left Loathes

To many civil rights and abortion rights advocates, he is now Public Enemy No. 1. To Christian conservatives and others who seek to ban abortions and elevate the rights of states, he is a hero.

But to members of the U.S. Senate from both major parties, John David Ashcroft is simply one of them. That explains why the man named Friday to be the next attorney general could well sail through the Senate confirmation process even if he is the most controversial figure President-elect George W. Bush has yet named to his Cabinet.

Ashcroft, 58, the gospel-singing, teetotaling, piano-playing son of a Pentecostal minister, is a one-term Republican senator from Missouri who in his bid for reelection was narrowly defeated last month by a dead man. In the Senate, he routinely scored perfect or near-perfect marks on his voting record from conservative groups.

During a brief flirtation in 1998 with a presidential candidacy, Ashcroft courted social conservatives zealously, called for tax cuts totaling trillions of dollars more than the eventual Bush plan (which would cost $1.3 trillion over 10 years) and was an early leader in the drumbeat for President Clinton to resign following revelations of his affair with former White House intern Monica S. Lewinsky.

At a time when many politicians and pundits are calling for reconciliation and bipartisanship, Ashcroft stands out as one who has disdained the political middle.

“If you start focusing on the doable, you give away too much,” he said in a 1998 interview. “If you focus on the noble, you change the definition of the doable.”

And what do liberals think of him? Ralph G. Neas, president of People for the American Way, a group critical of Christian conservatives, said Friday of Ashcroft: “With the possible exception of Sen. Jesse Helms [R-N.C.], I do not believe anyone in the United States Senate has a more abysmal record on civil rights and civil liberties.”

Said Elizabeth Cavendish, legal director for the National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League: “It’s hard to imagine someone worse than John Ashcroft on women’s reproductive rights. He’s not only anti-choice, he’s a leader. He’s built his career on trying to restrict women’s right to choose.”

However, the American Conservative Union hailed Ashcroft as a solid conservative with a “sterling” record of service to the country.

And Gary Bauer, the religious conservative who sought the GOP presidential nomination earlier this year, said: “He has a solid conservative legal and judicial philosophy combined with a moderate . . . persona which will help him get along with all the people he will need to deal with.”

As attorney general, Ashcroft would be the nation’s top law enforcement officer. The Justice Department includes the FBI, the Office of the Solicitor General (who argues for the United States before the Supreme Court), the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Immigration and Naturalization Service, U.S. attorneys and the U.S. Marshals Service. He also would be an influential advisor to the president and Congress on legislation and a host of legal issues.

Ashcroft’s resume is studded with positions that his backers say have prepared him well for such a demanding job. He holds a bachelor’s degree from Yale University and a law degree from the University of Chicago Law School. He was state attorney general in Missouri from 1976 to 1985, then governor from 1985 to 1993. Until his November defeat, he had always won general elections with comfortable, often crushing statewide majorities. In the Senate, he served on the Foreign Relations, Commerce and Judiciary committees and most recently was chairman of a Judiciary subcommittee on the Constitution, federalism and property rights.

Senate Republicans were deeply disappointed when Ashcroft lost by 2 percentage points to Mel Carnahan, a popular Democratic governor who died in a plane crash in mid-October, too late for his name to be stricken from the ballot. That loss helped create the first 50-50 split in the Senate between Republicans and Democrats--with control in GOP hands only because of the tie-breaking vote of the next vice president, Dick Cheney.

But now some Republicans say that events may have turned out for the best. “As much as he’d like to be in the United States Senate,” said Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa), “the country’s better off with him as attorney general.”

Ironically, Ashcroft’s defeat--specifically, the way he accepted it--may have boosted his chances to get a top post in the Bush administration. While some Republican strategists suggested that the Senate would have strong legal grounds to refuse to seat Carnahan’s widow, Jean--who has been appointed to fill the seat starting Jan. 3--Ashcroft quickly rejected such strategies.

Ashcroft did so even though there was no love lost between his campaign and Carnahan’s. The senator had clashed heatedly with his opponent over the death penalty (Ashcroft ardently supports it), abortion rights (he opposes legal abortion in almost all cases) and race-related matters (he opposed the confirmation of a prominent black jurist to the federal bench, citing evidence that he said showed the nominee was soft on crime). The case of that jurist, Missouri Supreme Court Justice Ronnie White, who was the first nominee for federal district judge to be defeated in the Senate in many years, became a rallying cry for civil rights groups that said the vote was racially biased.

Yet the explosiveness of the campaign subsided immediately after the Nov. 7 election. The next day, Ashcroft said: “I believe that the will of the people has been expressed with compassion and that the people’s voice should be respected and heard. . . . And I hope that the outcome of this election is a matter of comfort to Mrs. Carnahan.”

Some of Ashcroft’s Senate peers also vouch for his courtesy. Sen. Russell D. Feingold (D-Wis.), another member of the Judiciary Committee who is a fervent backer of civil rights legislation, called Ashcroft “a gentleman” and “invariably polite and flexible” in his handling of legislative procedures. Last year, Feingold said, Ashcroft gave him an open hearing on a bill calling for reviews of alleged racial profiling by police agencies.

“So many senators are so guarded, concerned about what they’re saying,” he said. “He’s candid. He looks you right in the eye.”

What inflames liberals about Ashcroft are his uncompromising positions. He has sought to cut funding for the National Endowment for the Arts. He won limits on federal funding for physician-assisted suicide and on Medicaid payments for abortions. He backed legislation to ban the late-term procedure critics call “partial-birth” abortion and he supported the position of the National Rifle Assn. on key votes.

Ashcroft has embraced get-tough public safety policies. In his campaign, Ashcroft cited as highlights the enactment of one law to make penalties for methamphetamine crimes equal to those for crack cocaine and another to ensure that disciplinary records of students are transferred from school to school.

Sen. Larry E. Craig (R-Idaho), who sang tenor to Ashcroft’s baritone in a quartet known as the Singing Senators, dismissed the complaints of liberals. “One of the reasons these groups are outraged is because they’re out of power,” Craig said. “They were in power the last eight years. They had full access to the attorney general when other groups did not that were conservative.”

One Democrat who said he has opposed Ashcroft at almost every turn predicted that he would be easily confirmed. “There is no mistaking John Ashcroft is a decidedly conservative individual,” said Sen. Robert Torricelli (D-N.J.). “We don’t share much philosophically. But it’s difficult to question that he’s a person of considerable ability and great integrity.”

Ashcroft’s wife Janet, whom he met at the University of Chicago law school, taught until recently at Howard University’s business school.

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Profile: John Ashcroft

* Born: May 9, 1942

* Education: Undergraduate degree, Yale University, 1964; law degree, University of Chicago, 1967

* Career highlights: Republican candidate for U.S. House of Representatives, 1972; Missouri auditor, 1973-75; Missouri assistant attorney general, 1975-76; Missouri attorney general, 1976-85; Missouri governor, 1985-93; U.S. senator, 1994-present.

* Family: Wife, Janet; three children.

Source: Associated Press