Dobson 'disgusted'
on Lott-judge deal

Dr. James Dobson

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WASHINGTON – Dr. James Dobson, the influential founder of Focus on the Family, has just about had it with former Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, whom he accused of cutting a deal with Democrats in the upper house that would preserve their right to filibuster judicial nominees.

Dobson told another pro-family leader, American Family Association's Don Wildmon, in a radio interview yesterday that he was "disgusted and alarmed" about the deal he heard about from a "totally reliable source."

According to Dobson, the Lott deal with the Democrat leadership would prevent Majority Leader Bill Frist from invoking the constitutional option – sometimes referred to as the "nuclear option" – to stop the Democrats' continued filibuster against the president's conservative judicial nominees.

"I don't remember being so disgusted and alarmed by what I just had confirmed in the Senate as I am now," Dobson said. "Senator Trent Lott is about to sabotage Majority Leader Frist and cut a separate deal with the Democrats to preserve the filibuster of judges."

Dobson said Lott and five other GOP senators will join six Democrats in the arrangement. "The deal, which Lott denied yesterday, proposes that four of the 10 filibustered judges would be confirmed – but that the filibuster would remain intact."

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What's in it for the Republicans? Dobson says not much.

"The Democrats, for what it's worth, have promised not to filibuster [nominees for] Supreme Court justice [vacancies] unless there were 'extreme circumstances,'" Dobson said. "Guess what that means? It means that it's business as usual."

According to a report in Agape News, Wildmon says the vote to end the filibuster as "the most important vote taken this year in the Senate" – and Lott's proposal, he says, "means we lose."

In a formal written statement, Dobson had more tough criticism for the Lott deal.

"The reported deal between Republicans and Democrats – aided and abetted by Sen. Trent Lott and several of his waffling Republican colleagues – is to allow any four of the seven appellate nominees to proceed, in exchange for Republican promises to preserve the filibuster," said. "For Monopoly players, that is like offering to trade Park Place and Boardwalk for Baltic and Mediterranean. If the Republicans consent to this disaster, they'll not only be abandoning the men and women who put them in office, they'll be demonstrating that they do not deserve the leadership entrusted to them."

Dobson's political support, as a conservative evangelical leader, is considered vital to the Republican Party.

"Particularly insulting is that this reported deal calls for Democrats to pledge to vote on future Supreme Court nominees, except for those they call 'extreme cases,'" he said. "Given the kinds of qualified judges Democrats have filibustered for the past four years, it's clear they view as 'extreme' any judge who demands that the Constitution be interpreted as written. One of those appeals court nominees, Janice Rogers Brown, won 76 percent of the vote in her election to the California Supreme Court last time. That's a landslide in a liberal state, yet she's still far too conservative for the Senate liberals."

Dobson concluded: "It's past time to stop the nonsense. Win or lose, the Republican leadership must call for the constitutional option vote, and do so without any more delay."