Ashcroft Battle Unlikely to Leave Deep Wounds

In the end, Democrats showed force but didn’t pull the trigger. Republicans proved they could unify under pressure.

But the real surprise behind the Senate’s 58-42 vote to confirm John Ashcroft as attorney general Thursday was how both sides seemed ready to move on. There were few signs the battle would leave the long-term scars many had assumed would result from the controversial nomination.

And as the focus in Congress shifts from Cabinet choices to policy decisions, President Bush’s much-touted call for a new spirit of cooperation in Washington remains intact, at least for now.

“We could have blown it up,” said Sen. Tom Daschle (D-S.D.), leader of the largest minority in Senate history. “It could have been a disaster right out of the box.”

To be sure, the Ashcroft vote was freighted with political implications. Democrats claimed that the total opposed to him--one more than needed to tie up the chamber in endless debate--demonstrated that they could block staunchly conservative nominees to the Supreme Court or other openings in the federal judiciary. Republicans countered that their display of unanimity--all 50 GOP senators voted for Ashcroft--showed that they and Bush would not be intimidated.

Meanwhile, presidential ambitions or reelection calculations likely influenced the votes of some senators.

But the strongest sign of behind-the-scenes bipartisanship that underlay the frontal partisan assault on Ashcroft was the fact that Thursday’s vote occurred at all.

Daschle joined those voting against Ashcroft and denounced the nomination of the former senator from Missouri in a ringing speech. But two weeks ago, he had quietly moved to quell threats of a Democratic filibuster to block the Ashcroft nomination from coming to a vote.

There were other telling signals that the battle wounds--in the Senate, at least--were closing quickly. Bush is scheduled to speak today at a retreat of the 50 Senate Democrats here in Washington, where he is expected to get a cordial reception.

Then there was Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), champion of the anti-Ashcroft forces. Kennedy’s final pre-vote speech Thursday was not one of his trademark stemwinders. It was delivered in a flat, subdued tone to a nearly empty Senate floor.

Kennedy then dashed off to the White House for an appearance at a Bush initiative on disabilities--one of several appearances he has made with the new president--before returning to the Capitol to cast his negative vote. Later, he and other members of the Kennedy clan were to attend an evening gathering with Bush to watch “Thirteen Days,” the new movie about the Cuban missile crisis in 1962 when his brother was president.

Such is hardly the stuff of political trench warfare.

“There is a sense that there can be, and will be, disagreement,” said one Senate Democratic aide. “But it will not be taken personally and will not affect the White House and the Senate’s ability to make progress in other areas.”

On the Republican side, Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott of Mississippi said that he doubts the Ashcroft episode would damage cross-party relations. “Too much effort has been made by myself, Sen. Daschle and President Bush to let some of the shrillness against this nominee sour that,” Lott said.

Lott relished the discipline that his often-fractious party demonstrated as it held ranks in the first showdown of the Bush administration with congressional Democrats. What’s more, the GOP unanimity was never in doubt.

Northeastern Republicans such as Sens. Susan Collins and Olympia J. Snowe of Maine, James M. Jeffords of Vermont and Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania--abortion-rights supporters all--signaled weeks ago that they were on board with the nomination, even though Ashcroft in his six years in the Senate fought abortion rights at every chance. Collins, up for reelection in 2002, declared her support publicly in a meeting choreographed with the Bush transition team.

So did Sen. Peter Fitzgerald (R-Ill.), considered a possible gubernatorial candidate in 2002 and a backer of gun-control measures that Ashcroft has opposed. It was Fitzgerald, in the Senate’s presiding chair, who declared shortly before 3 p.m. that Ashcroft had been confirmed.

Among Democrats, it quickly had become clear that the vote on Ashcroft loomed as a potential litmus test, given the intense opposition his nomination generated among liberal interest groups and civil rights organizations. Perhaps not coincidentally, the 42 Senate Democrats voting against him included those most prominently mentioned as possible candidates on the party’s national ticket in 2004 or beyond: Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut, Evan Bayh of Indiana, John Edwards of North Carolina, John F. Kerry of Massachusetts and Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York.

Other no votes came from every Democratic senator up for reelection in 2002, including some who represent states with a moderate-to-conservative political bent--such as Max Cleland of Georgia, Max Baucus of Montana, Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, Tim Johnson of South Dakota and Jean Carnahan of Missouri. Though each of these likely will need to reach out to swing voters to win reelection, none may have wanted to risk alienating their core constituency in the Ashcroft vote.

Some of the eight Democrats who backed Ashcroft could be part of a conservative-centrist coalition that pushes pieces of the Bush policy agenda. Sens. John B. Breaux of Louisiana and Zell Miller of Georgia fit that mold.

Sens. Kent Conrad and Byron L. Dorgan, both North Dakota Democrats, and Democrat Ben Nelson of Nebraska also voted for Ashcroft, perhaps influenced by the wide margins by which Bush carried their states last November.

The other Democrats for Ashcroft were Sens. Christopher J. Dodd of Connecticut, Robert C. Byrd of West Virginia and Russell D. Feingold of Wisconsin.

Feingold, coauthor of legislation to reform the campaign finance system, said he did not want to stand in the way of the president’s selection despite his reservations about Ashcroft’s record. And he may already be reaping rewards from that strategy. Lott praised him in a speech on the Senate floor and noted that he has worked with Feingold to schedule a vote on his legislation, which is anathema to many Republicans.

Even those Democrats who voted against Ashcroft were not spoiling for an all-out fight. In part, that was a bow to reality. Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.), an Ashcroft opponent, said he doubted those wanting to filibuster the Ashcroft nomination could have attracted the 41 votes to sustain it.

Indeed, Senate aides said that the 42 votes against Ashcroft would have dropped sharply if the question had been whether to block the matter from coming to the floor.

Many Democrats contended that the filibuster is a power they can use only sparingly. Daschle gave three reasons for shying away from using his strongest parliamentary weapon. First, he said, the president deserved to have a vote on his Cabinet nominees. Second, the Democrats are looking for chances to influence legislation in a “real partnership.” And finally, the Democratic leader acknowledged that Ashcroft was given some deference because he was a former senator with friends on both sides of the aisle.

“We had to take [that] into account,” Daschle said.