Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle says Democrats will use all strategies – including a filibuster – to prevent President Bush's choice of Charles Pickering from being approved for duty on a federal appeals court.
"We're going to do everything we can, everything we can, to stop that nomination, on the floor and in the committee," Daschle said on ABC's "This Week" with George Stephanopoulos.
The South Dakota Democrat is focusing on the hot-button issue of race, alleging Pickering's record is less than stellar when it comes to the rights of minorities.
"You look through his history," said Daschle, "not only as a judge, but as a state legislator and in many other capacities, George, and there is no question, his insensitivity to civil rights, to equal rights, especially to minorities, is something that is well-documented. This man does not deserve to be in the second-highest court in the land and we're going to do everything we can to stop it."
"I think this really lays bare the administration's real position on civil rights. This exposes the Southern Strategy, clearly. There is no doubt in my mind we now know from where they come," he said.
After his first nomination to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, Pickering was defeated 10-9 in the Senate Judiciary Committee, when Democrats still held a majority. Civil rights groups said he supported segregation as a young man in Mississippi.
But Republicans now hold the majority in the Senate resulting from the last election, and Majority Leader Bill Frist of Tennessee is strongly backing Pickering, saying the Democrats are playing a familiar game.
"I think this, unfortunately, is trying to use race and racial issues to play politics," Frist said on "Fox News Sunday."
He also said that Democrats had ignored other actions by Pickering, including his testimony in 1967 against the Ku Klux Klan's imperial wizard.
"Judge Pickering is a well-qualified judge," Frist said. "The American Bar Association said – used those words as well-qualified. There are many people who think he did not get a fair hearing before, so I receive his nomination gladly, and I hope that the judiciary committee will have a fair hearing and be brought to the floor ... ."
When asked whether Republicans would look to have blacks switch parties to the GOP, Frist said:
"Well, I can tell you that the idea that all blacks are Democrats, that by definition if you're African-American, you're a Democrat, is something that offends me.
"If you look at basic principles, whether it is values, whether it's respect for the spiritual beliefs, whether it is education and empowerment, whether it's the issues surrounding health, I would argue, and would continue to argue, that the Republican Party is more in sync, more in sync with the African-American population today."