WASHINGTON — Senate Democrats rejected President Bush's choice of Texas Supreme Court Justice Priscilla Owen for a U.S. appeals court Thursday, calling her a conservative "judicial activist" who had regularly sided with big business and insurance firms over injured workers and consumers.
The 10-9 party-line vote in the Judiciary Committee marked the second defeat for a Bush court nominee this year. Bush reacted angrily to the vote.
"A handful of senators, acting out of pure politics, did not let this good woman's name go forward," the president said in Louisville, Ky., where he spoke at a GOP fund-raiser. It's "bad for the country. It's bad for our bench. And I don't appreciate it one bit, and neither do the American people."
Despite the rejection, the committee has approved 79 of Bush's judicial picks. They include New York Judge Reena Raggi, who was put on the federal bench by President Reagan in 1987. Bush selected her for the U.S. Court of Appeals in New York, and she won quick, unanimous approval Thursday.
But more fights loom for the bitterly divided Judiciary Committee.
Later this month, the panel expects to hold a hearing on Miguel Estrada, a highly regarded and staunchly conservative Washington attorney who was chosen for the appeals court here. In October, University of Utah Law School professor Michael McConnell is expected to come before the committee. A scholar on religion and the Constitution, McConnell was chosen for the appeals court in Denver.
With Thursday's vote, Democrats--who hold the slimmest of majorities on the committee--said they were sending a message to the White House that conservative "activists and ideologues" would face trouble.
"I really hope the administration listens to this vote," Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California said before voting against Owen's nomination. Bush won a close election, she said, and "there is no mandate to skew the courts."
"Mainstream conservatives will sail through this committee," said Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.), noting the Raggi vote. "Activists and ideologues are going to have a more difficult voyage."
During a daylong hearing in July, the Democrats cited a series of rulings in which Owen, sometimes alone in dissent, voted to reverse jury verdicts in favor of injured people, workers or consumers. They alleged she bent the law to favor business interests.
