High court nominee on senators’ breakfast agenda

With a huge Supreme Court nomination fight expected soon, Maine’s two U.S. senators will eat breakfast this morning with the “Gang of 14” that brokered an agreement breaking an earlier logjam on judicial nominees in the U.S. Senate.

This morning’s meeting is on President Bush’s possible choices to succeed retiring Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor.

“It’s regrettable that we have major media campaigns under way regarding a Supreme Court nominee when we do not have a nominee,” said Republican Sen. Olympia Snowe. “Unfortunately, I think it serves to elevate the polarization and partisanship that exists here in the Senate and in Washington in general.”

She said President Bush has been consulting with Senate leaders from both parties as well as individual senators. She argues that the time for media campaigns is after a nomination is made.

“That’s when you have the chance to evaluate the qualifications of the nominee and the various attributes and qualities of the candidate,” she said, “but to run ads now serves no purpose but to further polarize.”

Republican Sen. Susan Collins agreed with Snowe on the ad campaigns.

“After we have a nominee is the time for all of these groups to weigh in with their advertising campaigns,” she said, “although those efforts won’t have much of an impact on me.”

Snowe said the ad campaigns, expected from dozens of groups across the political spectrum, will also have little impact on her decision-making. She said a letter from a constituent will influence her more than form letters generated by TV advertising.

Collins said President Bush’s chief of staff, Andrew Card, met with her last week to ask for her advice on likely nominees. Collins declined to say who she suggested.

“The person should have integrity, should have a record of professional excellence, and the person should have a proper judicial temperament,” she said. “I am seeking an individual that will respect precedent, who respects the rule of law and will apply it fairly and will follow the Constitution.”

Collins said it is also important the nominee be able to put aside his or her individual beliefs on an issue and rule based on the law and the Constitution.

Snowe said that if she were asked for the qualities she would want in a nominee she would respond: “Sandra Day O’Connor.” She said O’Connor’s retirement from the court is a “great loss” to the nation because of her qualities as a justice.

“She is a model jurist for the Supreme Court – the way in which she approached many of the legal questions that faced the court in the more than two decades she has served,” Snowe said. “She has been pragmatic and displayed common sense.”

She said those are the qualities she wants President Bush to consider. She said there should be no tests that a nominee must pass on any issue, including abortion rights.

“Hopefully, that is not going to be the issue when we consider any particular candidate” Snowe said. “What we need to be looking for are superior qualifications and credentials and judicial temperament, how they value precedent, how they will approach the various issues that will come before them during their tenure.”

Collins said she is hopeful the process will not be dominated by the various interest groups seeking to push their agendas. She said the moderating influence of the Gang of 14 on the lower court appointments should be carried over to the consideration of nominees for the highest court.

The “Gang of 14” expression was coined earlier this year to describe a bipartisan group of senators who came up with a way to avoid further Senate entanglements over filibustering of judicial nominees. Snowe and Collins were among the 14.

“We all know Chief Justice [William] Rehnquist may decide to retire and it is important how we handle the replacing of Sandra Day O’Connor,” she said.

Neither Collins, first elected in 1996, nor Snowe, first elected in 1994, has participated in the confirmation process for a member of the Supreme Court. The last hearings were in 1994 when then-President Clinton nominated Stephen Breyer to succeed Harry Blackmun.

They are not alone. A majority of the 100 senators – 56 -have never participated in a Supreme Court confirmation.