Boxer Announces She’ll Vote Against Ashcroft

With the battle over the new Cabinet shifting back to John Ashcroft’s nomination as attorney general, Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) on Wednesday became the first senator to announce a no vote.

Boxer called on President-elect George W. Bush to withdraw the controversial nomination, saying that many of her constituents are offended by Ashcroft’s conservative record on civil rights, women’s issues, the environment and gun control. His selection, she said, “is driving a stake into the heart of large numbers of Americans.”

Opponents estimated that at least 20 Democrats now may vote against him, though Republicans remained united in predicting his confirmation.

Boxer’s announcement came a day after Linda Chavez withdrew her nomination to be secretary of Labor in the wake of questions about her support for an illegal immigrant. Boxer’s decision, while not unexpected given her liberal record, could provide political cover to others with similar misgivings.

Liberal groups seeking to head off Ashcroft’s nomination said they think that Boxer’s strongly worded statement could encourage others to ratchet up the debate on Ashcroft in advance of next week’s confirmation hearings. Several other Democratic senators have voiced increased concern about Ashcroft in recent days. But, unlike Boxer, none has declared that he or she is ready to vote against confirmation.

Ashcroft’s foes would need 41 to maintain a filibuster and 10 more to reject the nomination.

Boxer’s declaration represents “a crack in the wall that you don’t want to get any larger if you’re John Ashcroft. Two or three folks through that hole and you’ve got a gusher,” said an aide to a Senate Democrat who is undecided.

Meanwhile, speculation grew Wednesday about a tape of an Ashcroft speech in May 1999 at Bob Jones University, the South Carolina college that has drawn fire from civil rights groups because of its former ban on interracial dating.

Democrats, liberal interest groups and reporters all have been scrambling to find a copy of the tape, and Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.), who will chair Ashcroft’s confirmation hearing beginning Tuesday, has asked Vice President-elect Dick Cheney to provide material on it.

“There has been sufficient interest in Sen. Ashcroft’s remarks in May 1999 at Bob Jones University that copies of any notes and transcripts of that speech” should be sent to the Judiciary Committee, Leahy wrote last week.

A spokesman for the university said Wednesday that the 5,000-student Christian fundamentalist school has a videotape of the commencement exercise and Ashcroft’s remarks in its archives but will release it only at Ashcroft’s request.

“Everyone’s dying to get their hands on that thing,” spokesman Jonathan Pait said in an interview. “The more who call me, the more I don’t want to give that out . . . because the media just wants to perpetuate this misconception that we are a bunch of racist, bigoted people. Everyone is seeking to demonize John Ashcroft.”

Pait added that Ashcroft’s remarks on the tape total only a few minutes. “He did not get into views per se at all. It was a very innocuous speech.”

The school was drawn into controversy last March after Bush stopped there during his presidential campaign, telling audience members that he shared their views. Bush later apologized for failing to criticize the school’s anti-Catholic position and racial policies, and days later the school dropped its ban on interracial dating.

The Bush transition team said that, when Ashcroft received his 1999 honorary degree from the university, he was not aware of the policy on interracial dating and did not support it.

But Nan Aron, head of the Alliance for Justice, a civil rights coalition that is helping lead the anti-Ashcroft drive, said the public has a right to know what Ashcroft said in his speech. The remarks “should be part of the record in this case. Accepting an honorary degree from a university infamous for its racially discriminatory policies raises concerns about Ashcroft’s sense of fairness and judgment,” she said.

Critics have also attacked Ashcroft’s support for Confederate “patriots” of the Civil War, his strong views and actions in opposition to abortion, his derailment of the federal judicial nomination of Ronnie White, a black judge in his home state of Missouri, and other issues.

Boxer said in an interview that “it would be best for the president-elect to reconsider this nomination and spare the nation the hurt and anxiety and divisiveness that this is causing. . . . There has to be [a candidate] who is not going to carry this kind of portfolio.”

Ashcroft and his allies have one primary goal heading into next week’s hearings: lock in as many public endorsements as possible. Significantly, none of the 50 Senate Republicans has broken publicly with Ashcroft--even though GOP moderates have disagreed with him on many issues. Last week one Republican who supports abortion rights, Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, endorsed Ashcroft. Her announcement was a blow to abortion-rights groups that had hoped to drive a wedge between moderate Republicans and the nomination.

Ashcroft continued Wednesday to make the rounds on Capitol Hill.

Sen. Peter Fitzgerald (R-Ill.), who unlike Ashcroft is a supporter of gun control and some Democratic health-care initiatives, met with the nominee and issued another endorsement. And Sen. Trent Lott (R-Miss.), who will soon be majority leader, predicted that Ashcroft opponents would fail. Republicans are unanimously in the nominee’s camp, Lott said, and some Democrats will join them.

“Only senators vote [on confirmation] and a number of Democrats have already said this is a good man,” Lott told reporters, adding: “I expect he’ll be treated appropriately, and he’ll be confirmed.”

Mindy Tucker, a Bush spokeswoman, said that she has not seen any loss of support for Ashcroft.

“We’re confident that Sen. Ashcroft still has a great deal of respect from his colleagues in the Senate,” she said. As for Boxer’s statement, she said: “It’s unfortunate that she has chosen divisive political rhetoric instead of the facts.”

Ashcroft also has been courting Democrats--though at least one, Sen. Russell D. Feingold of Wisconsin, appeared Wednesday to be toning down his early praise of the nominee as “a respected public servant with a fine legal mind.”

After meeting with Ashcroft, Feingold, a member of the Judiciary Committee, said: “The Senate and the American people deserve to hear his answers to questions that have been raised about his record in public office before entrusting him with the role of the nation’s chief law enforcement officer.” Even if, as some Senate strategists said, there are at least 20 senators who may vote against Ashcroft, that number is not a major problem for his confirmation. If opponents could muster more than 40 votes, they could filibuster to block a vote on the nomination--though Democratic strategists acknowledge that it could be tough to explain to the public why a president should not be given a straight up-or-down vote on a nomination.

Under Senate rules, it takes 60 votes of the 100 senators to break a filibuster.

Asked how many Democrats would oppose the nomination, Sen. Tom Daschle of South Dakota, the party’s leader in the chamber, said Tuesday: “No one really knows the level of opposition until after we’ve concluded our hearings. . . . We have some tough questions. . . .”

The top question, Daschle said, is whether the former senator “is able to enforce laws that he publicly disagrees with.”

Opponents have mounted a vigorous campaign, meeting with senators in person and drumming up grass-roots constituents to pepper targeted offices with phone calls, e-mail and faxes.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), who met Jan. 4 with Ashcroft, on Wednesday repeated her view that she will keep an “open mind” about the nomination but ask tough questions during the hearings.

Feinstein said she is bearing in mind that California is “dominantly pro-choice” and that the state supports strong gun control and civil rights laws. She said that she wants an attorney general who would enforce the law “not only by word but also by body language and deed.”

Meanwhile, Rod Paige, Bush’s choice for Education secretary, won bipartisan praise at his confirmation hearing Wednesday from members of the Senate Health, Education and Labor Committee. Paige, superintendent of the Houston public school system, sought to deflect concerns that some lawmakers raised about school vouchers, saying they were “not a priority.”

Predicting that Paige would do “an outstanding job,” Sen. Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts, the committee’s senior Democrat, said that the panel “will make sure [Paige’s] name is there for approval” when the Senate votes.