Upping the Judicial Ante
EDITORIAL, NYTimes on the Web, January 17, 2005
When the Senate battles fire up again over the merits of President Bush's nominees to the federal courts, the administration will have a surprising new partisan on its side, the National Association of Manufacturers, the powerful business lobby that heretofore has stayed out of such high-profile political fracases.
The aggressive decision to create a multimillion-dollar campaign in open support of the Bush nominees was announced by the group's new president, John Engler, former governor of Michigan and one of Mr. Bush's close Republican friends.
Some social conservative groups had already announced that they were adding Mr. Bush's judicial nominations to their normal priority list for the new year.
The N.A.M.'s decision to join in is significant. The association includes 10,000 small and middle-size businesses, but also major manufacturers like General Motors that are presumably sensitive to overt partisanship in the public arena.
Mr. Engler told The Los Angeles Times that his organization was not interested in abortion and other social issues that are the lightning rods at the Senate's judicial hearings.
The decision to openly rally to the president's side, he said, is rooted in issues like tort reform.
Indeed, Mr. Bush has been pressing for limits on the ability of the public to sue and recover damages from businesses.
In response, Big Labor and other liberal groups have begun talking of spending more on the judgeship fights.
And that will further degrade a debate that should be about a nominee's merits, not the whose-side-are-you-on simplicities of feral politics.
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