Nomination of Charles W. Pickering, Sr., of Mississippi, to be United States Circuit Judge for the Fifth Circuit

NOMINATION OF CHARLES W. PICKERING, SR., OF MISSISSIPPI, TO BE UNITED STATES CIRCUIT JUDGE FOR THE FIFTH CIRCUIT

Mr. BUNNING. Mr. President, I speak today in support of Judge Charles Pickering and his nomination to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals.

Judge Pickering was unanimously confirmed to be a Federal district judge in 1990, where he has served honorably ever since. He graduated first in his law school class at the University of Mississippi while serving on the Law Journal and Moot Court. In addition to practicing in a law firm, Judge Pickering was both a city and county prosecutor and a municipal court judge. Judge Pickering continued his public service in the Mississippi State Senate. He also has served his fellow man by helping others through organizations like the Red Cross and the March of Dimes. Judge Pickering has also devoted his life to Christ, serving at the First Baptist Church in Laurel, MS, as a Sunday school teacher and a deacon.

Those things tell us much about the man that Charles Pickering is. But there is much more. You see, Judge Pickering has spent his career as a leader in race relations in Mississippi. What is truly telling, however, is he spent his whole career tearing down barriers for minorities in the South, including during the 1960s and 1970s. Those actions did not make him a popular man among many in Mississippi at the time.

I remember the 1960s and 1970s. I regularly traveled around the country during those years and I remember what race relations were like in the South and throughout America. I remember what it was like as professional baseball gradually accepted then embraced minorities. It was a tumultuous time in our country and many brave men and women willingly staked their careers, their reputations, and even their lives on doing what was just and right. Charles Pickering was one of those men.

The stories of how Judge Pickering stepped above the fray and reached out to bring racial equality to Mississippi have been told many times. In recent years Judge Pickering has served on race relations committees in Mississippi including the Institute for Racial Reconciliation at the University of Mississippi. He has spent time working with at-risk minority children.

Those actions are laudable in and of themselves, but the actions that tell the true story of who Charles Pickering really is come from the 1960s and 1970s, those years when racial tensions were at their highest and the South was so volatile. In 1967 Judge Pickering was Prosecuting Attorney Pickering in Jones County, MS. Knowing it was to his own personal detriment, Charles Pickering took the witness stand to testify against the "Imperial Wizard" of the Ku Klux Klan in a trial for killing a black civil rights activist in a fire-bombing attack. By standing up for equality and justice, Prosecuting Attorney Pickering put himself and his family in danger and lost his reelection.

You can never really judge the strength of a man's convictions until standing up for those beliefs costs him something. Judge Pickering's willingness to stand up against racial violence cost him his job as a prosecutor. But that did not dissuade him from continuing to fight for racial justice. Possibly the most contentious race issue in the 1960s and 1970s was the integration of the public schools. Integration came to Laurel, MS, in 1973. Integration has been fought for years and creating a plan was not an easy task. The black and white communities in Laurel were split and Charles Pickering worked to bring them together and create a plan to integrate the schools. In the end many white families still moved their children to private schools to avoid integration and Judge Pickering easily could have done the same with his kids. Instead, he believed in integration and kept his children in the public schools.

Unfortunately, the reason Charles Pickering has been singled out by the radical left has nothing to do with the man or his qualifications. It has everything to do with ideology and the remaining adherents of a failed liberal orthodoxy holding on to their last vestiges of power in this Nation-the courts.

A radical liberal minority in this country is scared of Judge Pickering. They do not think he will do a bad job because he is unqualified. After all, the American Bar Association rated Judge Pickering "well qualified." Last I had heard, the liberal minority obstructing Judge Pickering's nomination called that rating their gold standard for judicial nominees.

The reason the liberal special interests are scared of Judge Pickering is that he is a judge who knows his role, who follows the law, and has a stellar civil rights record. These special interests have lost out in the public opinion and mainstream politics. They cannot successfully achieve their goals in the normal course of governance so they turn to the court system, which they have successfully used to roll back traditional values, traditional roles of Government, and individual rights. A judge with a proven record of following the law and understanding the difference between the legislature and the judiciary is a roadblock in their path of legislating through the judiciary.

I really believe Judge Pickering was singled out because of his stellar record on civil rights. It seems to me the liberal special interest groups that seem to be dictating the moves of the minority party in the Senate needed a test case to see if they could stop President Bush's nominees at will. They researched all his nominees and picked one who would be impossible to defeat on the merits and decided to distort his record and assassinate his character. They needed to see if they could get away with it. So last year they gave it a shot. And it worked. These special interests found willing accomplices in the Senate and in the media. Facts became irrelevant as lies flew and Charles Pickering was demagogued. But that was only a preview of what was to come.

While the filibustering by a minority of the Senate of Judge Pickering is an abdication of constitutional responsibility of the Senate, the wholesale assault on President Bush's nominees is truly egregious. Judge Pickering is not alone. The minority has taken aim at Miguel Estrada, Carolyn Kuhl, Janice Rogers Brown, Bill Pryor, Priscilla Owen, and Henry Saad. Each nominee has a fantastic story and a stellar record. Each has been singled out for his or her adherence to the law and the traditional roles of government.

Radical liberals have long fancied themselves as the champions of women and minorities in this country, and I have no doubt that many on the left do strive for equality for all Americans. But the radical left has achieved its power through the politics of division. A conservative Hispanic or conservative woman or conservative Arab or conservative black woman or conservative religious man is anathema to their dominance of these issues. Rather than celebrating the achievements of these gifted human beings ascending to the job for which he or she was selected by the President of the United States, these ultra liberals would rather defame their characters and demagogue their beliefs.

There seems to be no end in sight to these tactics and political showdowns. But I hope and pray that day will soon come.