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Page Two--Earlier Items
See Page One for Alito, Miers & Roberts

Excerpted from Howard Phillips Issues & Strategy Bulletin of July 15, 2003

"[T]he [Supreme] Court’s muddled approach reflected the equally muddled brief filed by the Bush Administration in the [affirmative action] case. That brief deeply disappointed conservatives, who expected the Bush Administration to unequivocally oppose any sort of race-based rewards or punishments."

ALBERTO GONZALES IS GWB’S GHOST-WRITER ON QUOTAS

"And the individual responsible for the confused brief was White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales - the man everyone believes is the President’s first choice for a Supreme Court vacancy. Disappointment over the decision will make Gonzales even less acceptable to conservatives."

"By the way, Justice David Souter was wrong twice yesterday. He not only voted to uphold reverse discrimination, but he also voted against efforts to restrict online pornography in public libraries! Souter was passed off to conservatives during the first Bush Administration as a ‘stealth candidate’ who had no record, but was nonetheless on our side. The idea was to avoid a nasty confirmation fight at all costs, but not even Bill Clinton could have made a worse appointment. (In fact, one of Clinton’s own appointees, Justice Breyer, sided with the 6-to-3 pro-family majority!) There is a lesson here for the next vacancy: Our side must be willing to fight or be prepared to surrender. [Editor’s Note: And they should not reflexively assume that Bush’s choice should be our choice.] There is no alternative." Source: Gary Bauer, American Values, 6/24/03

CAN A JUDGE BE MORALLY AND IDEOLOGICALLY NEUTRAL?

"William H. Pryor, Alabama’s attorney general, who has gained prominence as an outspoken opponent of legalized abortion and as an advocate for a greater Christian influence in government, told skeptical Democrats on the Judiciary Committee today that his personal views would have no bearing on his performance if he is confirmed as a federal judge. …

"The confirmation hearing was a vivid display of the debate as to how important a candidate’s personal views are in assessing his or her fitness to be a judge. Many of President Bush’s nominees have records of taking vigorous conservative views. When challenged at confirmation hearings by Democrats, they and their defenders invariably say that they will ‘follow the law’ and Supreme Court precedent and that their individual views are irrelevant. …"

ROE v. WADE: A LEGAL "ABOMINATION": A LEGAL "ABOMINATION": A LEGAL "ABOMINATION": A LEGAL "ABOMINATION"

"Mr. Pryor, following the pattern, argued vigorously that his personal beliefs and choices were unrelated to how he would behave as a federal judge. Although he had described Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court ruling that first found a constitutional right to abortion, as ‘the worst abomination in constitutional law and history,’ he said today, ‘I have a record as attorney general that is separate from my personal beliefs.’ "

"As the principal example, he said that as attorney general he had insisted that a new Alabama law outlawing late-term abortions be construed narrowly by local prosecutors because some parts of it appeared unconstitutional by Supreme Court standards." Source: Neil Lewis, The New York Times, 6/12/03, p. A29

Excerpted from Howard Phillips Issues & Strategy Bulletin of May 31, 1999

Warren Rudman, in his book, Combat: Twelve Years in the U.S. Senate, acknowledges what no other member of his party in the U.S. Senate has been willing to publicly admit: that David Souter, Rudman's and, subsequently, Bush's candidate for the U.S. Supreme Court, was pro-abortion from start to finish.

TCC RESEARCHED THE FACTS AND DELIVERED TO GOP SENATORS INCONTROVERTIBLE EVIDENCE OF SOUTER'S SUPPORT FOR ABORTION

Here is what Rudman had to say: "Howard Phillips, chairman of the Conservative Caucus, opposed the nomination, citing the fact that David, as a board member of the Concord Hospital, had participated in unanimous decisions to permit abortions there. ..."

GOP SUPREME COURT JUSTICES KENNEDY, O'CONNOR, AND SOUTER SAVED ROE V. WADE

"But perhaps the best ending to this story is a scene in a railroad station in Wilmington, Delaware, on Monday, June 29, 1992.

"That was the day the Supreme Court announced its long-awaited decision in Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey, the case in which the pro-life forces had hoped to muster five votes to overturn Roe v. Wade. Four votes were there, those of Chief Justice Rehnquist and Justices White, Scalia and the most recent addition to the court, Clarence Thomas. To form a majority, they needed only one vote from the centrist trio of Kennedy, O'Connor and Souter, and past votes by Kennedy and O'Connor had suggested that either might help overturn Roe."

SOUTER BECAME THE PRO-ABORTION LEADER

"Instead, Kennedy, O'Connor and Souter signed an unprecedented three-person opinion, joined by Justices Blackmun and Stevens, that dramatically reaffirmed Roe. In court that morning, each of the three read aloud a segment of the joint opinion.

"There was little doubt that David had been the catalyst who had drawn O'Connor and Kennedy to the defense of Roe, or that he was the principal author of the eloquent statement on stare decisis that was the heart of the opinion."

GOP PRESIDENTS NAMED PRO-ROE MAJORITY

Linda Greenhouse reports for The New York Times (5/18/99, p. A1 and A16) a Supreme Court ruling that state welfare programs may not restrict new residents to the welfare benefits they would have received in their home states.

WILL CONGRESS PERMIT JUDICIARY TO OVERRULE AND USURP LEGISLATIVE DECISION-MAKING?

"The 7-to-2 decision declared unconstitutional California's two-tier welfare system and, by implication, the provision of the 1996 Federal welfare law that authorized California's approach. In all, 15 states accepted Congress's invitation to hold newcomers, for their first year of residency, to the benefit levels of the states from which they had moved. ..."

THE ANSWER IS TO ABOLISH ALL FEDERALLY FUNDED WELFARE (TO AVOID DISCRIMINATION BY "CLASS")

"In the majority opinion today, Justice John Paul Stevens said the Constitution prohibited states from dividing their residents into classes and from discriminating among them.

"‘Citizens of the United States, whether rich or poor, have the right to choose to be citizens "of the State wherein they reside,"’ Justice Stevens said, quoting from the opening sentence of the 14th Amendment and adding, ‘The states, however, do not have any right to select their citizens.’ ..."

SCALIA VOTES WITH THE LIBERALS

"The majority opinion was joined by Justices Sandra Day O'Connor, Antonin Scalia, Anthony M. Kennedy, David H. Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen G. Breyer."

REHNQUIST AND THOMAS FIND NO CONSTITUTIONAL BASIS FOR RULING

"Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist and Justice Clarence Thomas dissented. The Chief Justice called the challenged law ‘a reasonable measure falling under the head of a good-faith residency requirement,’ similar to requirements of residency for voting, getting a divorce or obtaining reduced tuition at state universities.

"While the Court's precedents in this area had relied on a loosely defined ‘right to travel’ — a much-critiqued phrase that does not appear in the Constitution — the majority today anchored its decision in the explicit language of the 14th Amendment, which provides, ‘No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States.’

"That sentence, known as the privileges or immunities clause, had been buried for years under the weight of adverse Supreme Court precedent that had treated it as a dead letter since shortly after the 14th Amendment was ratified in 1868. In a ruling known as the Slaughter-House cases, in 1873, a 5-to-4 majority held that the privileges or immunities clause applied only to the privileges of national citizenship and not to the states."

ARROGANT JUDGES DICTATE TO STATE ELECTED OFFICIALS AS WELL AS TO CONGRESS

"California, which has one of the country's most generous benefit systems, had estimated that the lowered benefits for newcomers would save $10.9 million in an annual welfare budget of $2.9 billion. Justice Stevens noted that ‘an evenhanded, across-the-board reduction of about 72 cents per month for every beneficiary would produce the same result.’ He also said that ‘the state's legitimate interest in saving money provides no justification for its decision to discriminate among equally eligible citizens.’"

From Howard Phillips' speech to the Concerned Women For America, 1998

"Since 1980, the year when the GOP platform promised the appointment of pro-life judges, especially to the U.S. Supreme Court, Republican administrations have instead put forward such pro-abortion justices as Sandra Day O'Connor, Anthony Kennedy, and David Souter.

"Even the vehemently pro-abortion, pro-homosexual Supreme Court nominee Ruth Bader Ginsburg gained the confirmation votes of all but three of the Republican members of the U.S. Senate."

Excerpted from Howard Phillips Issues & Strategy Bulletin of May 31, 1996

SUPREME COURT DECLARES THAT OPPOSITION TO SPECIAL RIGHTS FOR THOSE WHO ENGAGE IN SODOMY IS UNCONSTITUTIONAL BIAS

There is nothing in the Constitution which gives force or effect to this opinion. It may be binding on the parties to the case and to the particular facts incident thereto, but in no way should Americans who prefer God's law to Anthony Kennedy's opinions be intimidated by this evil and presumptuous ruling.

Here are some excerpts from the comments in dissent of Justice Antonin Scalia (Roy Romer, Governor of Colorado, et al., v. Richard G. Evans et al. 5/20/96):

"The constitutional amendment before us here is not the manifestation of a ‘bare...desire to harm’ homosexuals...but is rather a modest attempt by seemingly tolerant Coloradans to preserve traditional sexual mores against the efforts of a politically powerful minority to revise those mores through use of the laws. That objective, and the means chosen to achieve it, are not only unimpeachable under any constitutional doctrine hitherto pronounced (hence the opinion's heavy reliance upon principles of righteousness rather than judicial holdings); they have been specifically approved by the Congress of the United States and by this Court.

"In holding that homosexuality cannot be singled out for disfavorable treatment, the Court contradicts a decision, unchallenged here, pronounced only 10 years ago, see Bowers v. Hardwick, 478 U.S. 186 (1986), and places the prestige of this institution behind the proposition that opposition to homosexuality is as reprehensible as racial or religious bias....This Court has no business imposing upon all Americans the resolution favored by the elite class from which the Members of this institution are selected, pronouncing that ‘animosity’ toward homosexuality...is evil...."

"The amendment prohibits special treatment of homosexuals, and nothing more. It would not affect, for example, a requirement of state law that pensions be paid to all retiring state employees with a certain length of service; homosexual employees, as well as others, would be entitled to that benefit. But it would prevent the State or any municipality from making death-benefit payments to the ‘life partner’ of a homosexual when it does not make such payments to the long-time roommate of a nonhomosexual employee....homosexuals could not be denied coverage, or charged a greater premium, with respect to auto collision insurance; but neither the State nor any municipality could require that distinctive health insurance risks associated with homosexuality (if there are any) be ignored....

"[T]he principle underlying the Court's opinion is that one who is accorded equal treatment under the laws, but cannot as readily as others obtain preferential treatment under the laws, has been denied equal protection of the laws. If merely stating this alleged ‘equal protection’ violation does not suffice to refute it, our constitutional jurisprudence has achieved terminal silliness....The world has never heard of such a principle, which is why the Court's opinion is so long on emotive utterance and so short on relevant legal citation...."

"I turn next to whether there was a legitimate rational basis for the substance of the constitutional amendment — for the prohibition of special protection for homosexuals. It is unsurprising that the Court avoids discussion of this question, since the answer is so obviously yes....In Bowers v. Hardwick, 478 U.S. 186 (1986), we held that the Constitution does not prohibit what virtually all States had done from the founding of the Republic until very recent years — making homosexual conduct a crime. That holding is unassailable, except by those who think that the Constitution changes to suit current fashions....

"If it is constitutionally permissible for a State to make homosexual conduct criminal, surely it is constitutionally permissible for a State to enact other laws merely disfavoring homosexual conduct....And a fortiori it is constitutionally permissible for a State to adopt a provision not even disfavoring homosexual conduct, but merely prohibiting all levels of state government from bestowing special protections upon homosexual conduct....

"Just as a policy barring the hiring of methadone users as transit employees does not violate equal protection simply because some methadone users pose no threat to passenger safety...Amendment 2 is not constitutionally invalid simply because it could have been drawn more precisely so as to withdraw special antidiscrimination protections only from those of homosexual ‘orientation’ who actually engage in homosexual conduct....

"No principle set forth in the Constitution, nor even any imagined by this Court in the past 200 years, prohibits what Colorado has done here. But the case for Colorado is much stronger than that. What it has done is not only unprohibited, but eminently reasonable, with close, congressionally approved precedent in earlier constitutional practice....

"The Court's opinion contains grim, disapproving hints that Coloradans have been guilty of ‘animus’ or ‘animosity’ toward homosexuality, as though that has been established as Unamerican....I had thought that one could consider certain conduct reprehensible — murder, for example... — and could exhibit even ‘animus’ toward such conduct. Surely that is the only sort of ‘animus’ at issue here: moral disapproval of homosexual conduct, the same sort of moral disapproval that produced the centuries-old criminal laws that we held constitutional in Bowers."

"The Colorado amendment does not, to speak entirely precisely, prohibit giving favored status to people who are homosexuals; they can be favored for many reasons — for example, because they are senior citizens or members of racial minorities. But it prohibits giving them favored status because of their homosexual conduct — that is, it prohibits favored status for homosexuality...."

"The Court's portrayal of Coloradans as a society fallen victim to pointless, hate-filled ‘gay-bashing’ is so false as to be comical. Colorado not only is one of the 25 States that have repealed their antisodomy laws, but was among the first to do so....But the society that eliminates criminal punishment for homosexual acts does not necessarily abandon the view that homosexuality is morally wrong and socially harmful....

"There is a problem, however, which arises when criminal sanction of homosexuality is eliminated but moral and social disapprobation of homosexuality is meant to be retained....The problem (a problem, that is, for those who wish to retain social disapprobation of homosexuality) is that, because those who engage in homosexual conduct tend to reside in disproportionate numbers in certain communities...have high disposable income...and of course care about homosexual-rights issues much more ardently than the public at large, they possess political power much greater than their numbers, both locally and statewide. Quite understandably, they devote this political power to achieving not merely a grudging social toleration, but full social acceptance, of homosexuality....

(‘[T]he task of gay rights proponents is to move the center of public discourse along a continuum from the rhetoric of disapprobation, to rhetoric of tolerance, and finally to affirmation’)...."

"Three Colorado cities — Aspen, Boulder, and Denver — had enacted ordinances that listed ‘sexual orientation’ as an impermissible ground for discrimination, equating the moral disapproval of homosexual conduct with racial and religious bigotry....

"Amendment 2....sought to counter both the geographic concentration and the disproportionate political power of homosexuals by (1) resolving the controversy at the statewide level, and (2) making the election a single-issue contest for both sides. It put directly, to all the citizens of the State, the question: Should homosexuality be given special protection? They answered no. The Court today asserts that this most democratic of procedures is unconstitutional. Lacking any cases to establish that facially absurd proposition, it simply asserts that it must be unconstitutional, because it has never happened before....

"The constitutions of the States of Arizona, Idaho, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Utah to this day contain provisions stating that polygamy is ‘forever prohibited.’....Polygamists, and those who have a polygamous ‘orientation,’ have been ‘singled out’ by these provisions for much more severe treatment than merely denial of favored status; and that treatment can only be changed by achieving amendment of the state constitutions. The Court's disposition today suggests that these provisions are unconstitutional, and that polygamy must be permitted in these States on a state-legislated, or perhaps even local ‘option, basis’ unless, of course, polygamists for some reason have fewer constitutional rights than homosexuals....

"Has the Court concluded that the perceived social harm of polygamy is a ‘legitimate concern of government,’ and the perceived social harm of homosexuality is not?..."

"When the court takes sides in the culture wars, it tends to be with the knights rather than the villeins — and more specifically with the Templars, reflecting the views and values of the lawyer class from which the Court's Members are drawn."

"How that class feels about homosexuality will be evident to anyone who wishes to interview job applicants at virtually any of the Nation's law schools. The interviewer may refuse to offer a job because the applicant is a Republican; because he is an adulterer; because he went to the wrong prep school or belongs to the wrong country club; because he eats snails; because he is a womanizer; because she wears real-animal fur; or even because he hates the Chicago Cubs. But if the interviewer should wish not to be an associate or partner of an applicant because he disapproves of the applicant's homosexuality, then he will have violated the pledge which the Association of American Law Schools requires all its member-schools to exact from job interviewers: ‘assurance of the employer's willingness’ to hire homosexuals. Bylaws of the Association of American Law Schools, Inc. 6-4(b); Executive Committee Regulations of the Association of American Law Schools 6.19, in 1995 Handbook, Association of American Law Schools. This law-school view of what ‘prejudices’ must be stamped out may be contrasted with the more plebeian attitudes that apparently still prevail in the United States Congress, which has been unresponsive to repeated attempts to extend to homosexuals the protections of federal civil rights laws...."

"Today's opinion has no foundation in American constitutional law, and barely pretends to. The people of Colorado have adopted an entirely reasonable provision which does not even disfavor homosexuals in any substantive sense, but merely denies them preferential treatment. Amendment 2 is designed to prevent piecemeal deterioration of the sexual morality favored by a majority of Coloradans, and is not only an appropriate means to that legitimate end, but a means that Americans have employed before. Striking it down is an act, not of judicial judgment, but of political will. I dissent."

SUPREME COURT DECISION EXPANDS FEDERAL QUOTA REQUIREMENTS TO INCLUDE ASPs (ANAL SEX PRACTITIONERS)

Paul Craig Roberts comments (Washington Times, 5/24/96, p. A16) that "The hopes of the majority of Americans that the upcoming California Civil Rights Initiative would signal the end of quota privileges and the restoration of equality before the law received a devastating blow on May 20 from a Republican Supreme Court. In its ruling, Romer vs. Evans, the court expanded the quota regime (illegal under the 1964 Civil Rights Act) by adding homosexuals to the category of ‘protected minorities.’ Homosexual activists have hailed the ruling as their version of Brown vs. Board of Education.

"Brown is known as the school desegregation decision, but more importantly it was the beginning of judicial legislation that has resulted in legal privileges for ‘protected minorities’ as ‘discrimination remedies.’...

"[T]he six liberals on the court are trying to offset ‘justified discrimination’ by keeping the door open for local ordinances that protect homosexuals from housing and employment discrimination. As in the cases of race and gender, in the courtroom such statutes would require quotas to prove that one was not discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation."

REAGAN'S JUSTICE KENNEDY AUTHORS PRO-HOMO QUOTA RULING

"Coloradans, fed up with the expansion of quotas, amended their state constitution in a 1992 referendum to prohibit the use of civil rights laws to create privileges for homosexuals. This referendum did not single out homosexuals for mistreatment, but simply said they could not be given legal privileges on the basis of sexual orientation. Six justices, led by Reagan appointee Anthony Kennedy, ruled that Colorado's anti-privilege referendum is unconstitutional....

"[T]he ruling is based only on the assertion that the referendum was motivated by animus toward homosexuals — the proof being the denial of privileged legal status. Justice Kennedy reasons that since females and racial minorities have legal privileges, it is a denial of equal protection under the law to deny these privileges to homosexuals....One can't help but notice the poor quality of the legal mind that restores equality by expanding privilege...."

GROUP RIGHTS FAVORED OVER INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS

"Another interpretation of the majority opinion is that the court has signed on to class or group rights....As homosexuals are a bona fide victim group, like racial minorities and women, it is a denial of protection to prohibit homosexuals from claiming, in the words of the referendum, ‘minority status, quota preferences, protected status or claim of discrimination.’...."

GOP'S FAILURE TO ASSERT BIBLICAL, CONSTITUTIONAL STANDARD RESULTS IN REPEATED, PREDICTABLE DISAPPOINTMENTS

"The destruction of the popular Colorado initiative by a Republican court built by GOP presidents, coupled with the impotence of the GOP Congress to eliminate the illegal quotas, leave tarring and feathering the only recourse for a people beset with tyrannical and lawless judges. It is past time to ride them out of town on a rail." How about impeachment?

Excerpted from The Howard Phillips Issues and Strategy Bulletin, July 15, 1996

JUSTICE THOMAS BLASTS FEDERAL ELECTION LAW ASSAULT ON FIRST AMENDMENT

Congratulations to Justice Clarence Thomas for his forceful and articulate dissent in Colorado Republican Federal Campaign Committee v. Federal Election Commission (Supreme Court, June 26, 1996):

"Contributions and expenditures both involve core First Amendment expression because they further the ‘discussion of public issues and debate on the qualifications of candidates...integral to the operation of the system of government established by our Constitution.’...When an individual donates money to a candidate or to a partisan organization, he enhances the donee's ability to communicate a message and thereby adds to political debate, just as when that individual communicates the message himself. Indeed, the individual may add more to political discourse by giving rather than spending, if the donee is able to put the funds to more productive use than can the individual....

"Giving and spending in the electoral process also involve basic associational rights under the First Amendment....Political associations allow citizens to pool their resources and make their advocacy more effective, and such efforts are fully protected by the First Amendment....If an individual is limited in the amount of resources he can contribute to the pool, he is most certainly limited in his ability to associate for purposes of effective advocacy....(‘To place a...limit...on individuals wishing to band together to advance their views...is clearly a restraint on the right of association’). And if an individual cannot be subject to such limits, neither can political associations be limited in their ability to give as a means of furthering their members' viewpoints....

"[C]ontribution limits infringe as directly and as seriously upon freedom of political expression and association as do expenditure limits....people and groups give money to candidates and other groups for the same reason that they spend money in support of those candidates and groups: because they share social, economic, and political beliefs and seek to have those beliefs affect governmental policy...."

"Section 441a(d)(3)...flatly bans all expenditures by all national and state party committees in excess of certain dollar limits....441a(d)(3)'s limits on political parties violate the First Amendment....

"The very aim of a political party is to influence its candidate's stance on issues and, if the candidate takes office or is reelected, his votes....

"I would find 441a(d)(3) [placing limits on political party expenditures] unconstitutional...."

Excerpted from The Howard Phillips Issues and Strategy Bulletin #548, April 30, 1996

DOLE ADMITS HE MAY NAME PRO-ABORTION SUPREME COURT JUSTICES

According to The New York Times (4/20/96, p. 10), Bob Dole had this to say about abortion and the courts in connection with his address to the American Society of Newspaper Editors:

QUESTION: "Senator Dole...You mentioned the word ‘penumbra’ and I believe ‘emanation’ as well, which are legal terms of art from decisions on privacy that eventually led to the Roe versus Wade decision on abortion. Is it your hope and expectation that if you have a couple of appointments to make you will help to produce the overturning of that decision?

"And secondly, will members of pro-life groups be asked to serve on this new screening panel you want to erect for the consideration of judicial appointments?"

ANSWER (SENATOR DOLE): "The answer to the latter is no, I don't believe in litmus tests. I'm trying to expand the Republican Party, and I don't give tests before you can enter. I stayed up all night one night trying to think of somebody I didn't want to vote for me, and I couldn't think of anybody...And I feel pretty much the same about the party. We're a big party, we have diversity in our party....I don't believe in a litmus test. I refused to sign a pledge earlier this year in the primary — or last year in the primaries. But I'm pro-life, have been. Proud of it. And — but I'm not going to use that as a test for anybody I appoint to the court."

Excerpted from Howard Phillips Issues & Strategy Bulletin of May 31, 1995

Orrin Hatch, the Republican chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, has, since the late 1970s, been a key player for the Washington Establishment.

He helped mastermind Jimmy Carter's last appointment to the U.S. Court of Appeals, Ruth Bader Ginsburg. He helped Lowell Weicker (R-CT) and Warren Rudman (R-NH) preserve the left-wing Legal Services Corporation from a mini-assault by David Stockman and Michael Horowitz in 1981. He divided pro-life forces by offering a "states rights alternative" to the Human Life Amendment. He provided critical support to the homosexuals in the approval of the Americans with Disability Act and the Hate Crimes bill. He smoothed the paths of Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer to the U.S. Supreme Court, and he promised on national television that he would not move forward with hearings to investigate the Federal government's murders of the innocent at Ruby Ridge and Waco.

Excerpted from Howard Phillips Issues & Strategy Bulletin of May 31, 1995

In my view, it is clear that, whatever your opinion of the merits of term limits, states do have the Constitutional authority to impose them.

ARTICLE THREE ENABLES GOP CONGRESSIONAL LEADERS TO PUT UP OR SHUT UP

It is also clear that, if members of Congress are serious in advocating term limits, they need not rely on a Constitutional amendment.

Article III of the Constitution makes clear the authority of Congress to restrict the appellate jurisdiction of the Supreme Court of the United States:

"In all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, and those in which a State shall be Party, the supreme Court shall have original Jurisdiction. In all the other Cases before mentioned, the supreme Court shall have appellate Jurisdiction, both as to Law and Fact, with such Exceptions, and under such Regulations as the Congress shall make."

The Supreme Court Justices who struck down term limits included: John Paul Stevens (appointed by Republican Gerald Ford), Anthony M. Kennedy (appointed by Republican Ronald Reagan), David H. Souter (appointed by Republican George Bush), plus Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen G. Breyer (both named by Clinton, with nearly unanimous GOP support in the Senate).

Neither Arlen Specter, Phil Gramm, nor Pete Wilson opposed the confirmation of any of those justices whose nominations were up for review during their own Senate tenures.

Dole became a senator in 1968, Specter in 1980, Wilson served from 1983 to 1990, Lugar was elected in 1976, and Gramm became a senator in 1984. Stevens was confirmed on December 17, 1975, Kennedy on February 3, 1988, Souter on October 2, 1990, Ginsburg on August 3, 1993, and Breyer on July 29, 1994.

Justice Kennedy's concurring opinion (asserting that "there exists a federal right of citizenship, a relationship between the people of the Nation and their National Government, with which the States may not interfere") underscores the continuing damage done by the Fourteenth Amendment, prior to the acceptance of which it was recognized that, in order to be a citizen of the United States, one must first be a citizen of a particular state or other area under U.S. jurisdiction.

According to "the Fourteenth Amendment": "All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside."

One draft of the Citizenship Taxpayer Protection Amendment promoted by the U.S. Taxpayers Alliance stipulates that:

"Section 1. (The fourteenth article of amendment to the Constitution of the United States is amended in the following respect only:) Citizens of the United States shall only be persons born of a mother who is either a citizen of one of the United States or of the District of Columbia, or who is lawfully present in and subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, and all persons who have been naturalized according to the laws of the United States."

Excerpted from Howard Phillips Issues & Strategy Bulletin of June 15, 1995

NOT A DIME'S WORTH OF DIFFERENCE

In my remarks at the U.S. Taxpayers Alliance 5th Semiannual National Issues Conference held in St. Louis on May 6, I offered these personal comments to those in attendance:

"We've heard a lot of talk about who is the most conservative Republican front-runner for the presidency.

"But if you focus narrowly on the Republican Senators who are running for President, even with inflation, there is not a dime's worth of difference among them. If you look at the way they voted in the United States Senate, their voting records are [virtually] identical. ... Phil Gramm, Bob Dole, Arlen Specter, Dick Lugar...all voted to restrict your right to keep and bear arms."

THIS IS CONSERVATIVE? ADA, HATE CRIMES, QUOTAS, EPA, GUN CONTROL, AND THE NEW WORLD ORDER

"None of them opposed the passage of the Brady bill on November 22, 1993. None of them opposed the so-called Hate Crimes bill. None of them opposed the so-called Clean Air Act amendments, which limit your ability to air condition your home and your car, and stifle American business. None of them opposed the so-called Civil Rights Act Amendments of 1991, which put the burden of proof on small business people to demonstrate that the composition of their work force comports with the demography of the area (undefined) in which their business operates.

"None of them opposed the Americans with Disabilities Act, which requires you to hire AIDS-infected homosexuals for food-handling positions if they apply and they are ‘otherwise qualified’. Not one of them voted against any of these things — not a blessed one of them.

"They all supported the New World Order. They all supported the assignment of U.S. troops under foreign command. They all supported the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights which gives the United Nations a claim of authority over domestic decision-making in the United States....

"The first duty of the Law is to prevent the shedding of innocent blood. That's the purpose of civil government. Abortion must absolutely be prohibited."

IF THEY'RE PRO-LIFE, WHY DID THEY VOTE FOR SOUTER, GINSBURG, AND PLANNED PARENTHOOD?

"Now, some of them are saying that they are pro-life. But is it pro-life when you vote for the confirmation of Ruth Bader Ginsburg to be a Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court? Specter voted for it. Lugar voted for it. Dole voted for it, and Gramm voted for it...She is unequivocally, unabashedly pro-abortion.

"David Souter, on the public record, before he was named to the U.S. Supreme Court, had been the trustee of two hospitals and had led the way in changing the policies of those two hospitals from zero-abortion to convenience-abortion.

"On his hands, when George Bush nominated him for the Supreme Court, was the blood of hundreds of unborn children. It was on his hands. He was an accessory to abortion. They knew it. I testified to it. But not a single Republican member of the United States Senate, least of all those running for the presidency in 1996, not one of them opposed David Souter."

"I hope that those people who say that they're no longer going to be satisfied with the crumbs from the Republican table — they are no longer going to be accessories to abortion themselves, by failing to oppose the politicians who advance it — I hope that they will do more than insist on pretty words in the Republican platform. Because frankly, even if the Republicans keep the words they had last time, its not going to save a single life."

"It didn't save a single life under Ronald Reagan when he named Sandra Day O'Connor, a committed pro-abortionist with a pro-abortion record in the Arizona State Senate, to the Supreme Court and no one voted against her. It didn't save a single life when the platform said that they would appoint pro-life judges, and then they appointed pro-abortion judges.

"It didn't save a single life, when they agreed not only to continue, but to vastly expand the hundreds of millions of dollars in taxpayer subsidies for Planned Parenthood and other pro-abortion organizations. All of those presidential candidates [from the Senate] have voted for subsidies to Planned Parenthood."

"Every one of them has voted for the safe sodomy subsidies, which come to more than a billion dollars a year, in the name of ‘AIDS education’. Every one of them has supported activities of the United Nations and other entities that transgress your religious liberties on the matter of life and death.

"So their words don't mean a blessed thing. The question is what are they going to do about it?"

"And they'll say, ‘Well, what can a President do?’

"I'll tell you what a President can do. A President can say: I will name no one to any Federal court, either the Supreme Court or any of the inferior Federal courts, unless that person has publicly acknowledged the legal personhood of the unborn child.

"I'll tell you what a President can do. He can say: I will veto any authorization or appropriation which includes in it one penny for any pro-abortion organization. And over the course of a presidency, more than a billion dollars will be denied to Planned Parenthood and its allies if you get a President who, in a four-year term, sticks to that word.

"I'll tell you what a President can do. He can name United States Attorneys who will hold abortionists and abortuaries to the letter of the Federal regulations that are unconstitutionally imposed on all of us. Now I'm in favor of eliminating those regulations for all of us. But as long as they are on the books, there is no one I would rather see required to comply than the abortuary profiteers who are responsible for the murder of so many unborn children. Let's put them behind bars for violating the environmental regulations. Let's harass them on OSHA. Let's go after them. If nothing else, that will at least increase the level of support for our effort to eliminate unconstitutional Federal regulations."

"There are other things. You know, Article Three of the Constitution is a remarkable piece of work."

"You know, a lot of us think the judges at the Federal level have life tenure. That's not true. They serve during "good behavior". Nothing in the Constitution says "life tenure". There's not a single word that guarantees a Federal judge life tenure. Some people think that Federal courts are permanent, that your district courts and your courts of appeals are permanent. That's not true."

"The Supreme Court is organic. It's mentioned in the Constitution, and that cannot be eliminated by cutting its funding or by changing the law. You can change the size of it, there are other things you can do. FDR showed that. Others have shown it. The size, the number of members on the Supreme Court, has varied throughout our history.

"But what you can do is totally eliminate all of the Federal courts now in existence below the Supreme Court. Do you know that? You could completely reorganize the Federal court system. You could veto the money for those district courts and appeals courts which are disregarding the Constitution and obviously not demonstrating good behavior.

"There are things that the Congress can do, right now, today. Under Article Three, they can limit the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court of the United States, the appellate jurisdiction. It is all in the Constitution. I urge you to read it."

"We need to have people in public office who have a standard and will uphold that standard. The reason the Republican Party zigs and zags and goes all over the map is because it has no fixed standard. As other speakers here today have pointed out, the standard on which our civil government is founded is the Word of God. It's that simple.

"There was a time when it was commonly said that ignorance of the law is no excuse. And that was because the Bible was the law. And everyone knew the Bible.

"But today, the law is whatever a bureaucrat with a computer or a pen says it is, supposedly. It's whatever a Congress or a regulatory agency says it is, supposedly. That is why we have so much debate in this country over issues like abortion and homosexuality and the death penalty — because we no longer, as a nation, acknowledge God and his Holy Word as the source of law.

"The common law of each of the states, with the exception of Louisiana, is rooted in the jurisprudential system that goes back ultimately to the Bible and it was moved on its present track by King Alfred in England back in the 11th or 12th century. We need to go back to the Christian roots of American jurisprudence."

At the time of the Senate vote, it was a matter of public record that Souter, in his role as trustee, had led an effort to shift the policies of two hospitals from zero abortions to convenience abortions. (Y-90, N-9, Roll Call 259, October 2, 1990)

Excerpted from Howard Phillips Issues & Strategy Bulletin of March 31, 1993

The Republican Party continues to demonstrate that it is unworthy, and apparently incapable, of providing the leadership which is needed to restore this country to its Biblical and Constitutional premises.

The Republican Party presents itself as the pro-life party. Indeed, millions of votes were cast for George Bush in 1992 by people who might otherwise have gone elsewhere, on the theory that Bush was the only "practical" choice for pro-lifers. Yet, on the most important abortion-related vote to occur prior to 1996, all the elephants took a dive and rolled over.

The first duty of the law is to prevent the shedding of innocent blood. The Attorney General of the United States is second only to the President as the chief law enforcement officer of the Federal government. Yet, when the time came to vote on whether we would have an Attorney General who would fulfill the government's obligation to help safeguard the God-given right to life, not a single Republican member of the U.S. Senate voted to hold Bill Clinton's nominee to that standard.

The U.S. Senate, by a margin of 98 to 0, with two abstentions (Mark Hatfield, R-OR and Robert Krueger, D-TX), confirmed the very pro-abortion Janet Reno to be Attorney General of the United States. "Ms." Reno will now be responsible for recommending candidates for all judicial and prosecutorial vacancies. No pro-lifers need apply.

The reason the Republicans did not hold Reno to a pro-life standard is because they have no standard. The GOP's real objective seems only to be "less worse" than its adversaries, and to thus perpetuate itself in office to some degree. They are "whited sepulchres" unworthy of respect, let alone support.

This is not the first time that the Republican Party has taken a dive on pro-life issues.

Not one Republican Senator voted against David Souter when he was appointed to the Supreme Court in 1990 by President George Bush, despite his "hands-on" pro-abortion record as a member of the board of trustees of the Concord Memorial Hospital.

The question is not will they ever learn. The question is will you ever learn? As long as you support Republicans who behave this way there will continue to be Republicans who behave this way.

As if to underscore her contempt for the supposedly pro-life GOP senators who aided her confirmation, immediately upon being sworn in Janet Reno "said she would direct Justice Department lawyers to determine whether Federal laws could be used to prevent protesters from interfering with women seeking abortions....

"...she said in a meeting with reporters hours after she took the oath of office. `Just as there should be a Federal remedy for racial discrimination and for gender discrimination, I think in this instance somehow or another there has got to be a Federal response to interference through physical conduct which restrains access to a woman's right to choose.'" (New York Times (3/13/93, pg. 7)

Excerpted from Howard Phillips Issues & Strategy Bulletin of July 31, 1993

On Friday, July 23, I appeared before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee to oppose the confirmation of Mrs. Ruth Bader Ginsburg (former General Counsel of the ACLU) to be a Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court.

CHAIRMAN JOSEPH BIDEN (D-DE): "....And, last, but clearly not least, is Howard Phillips, chairman of The Conservative Caucus, who is testifying on behalf of the U.S. Taxpayers Party---is that correct, Howard?"

HOWARD PHILLIPS: "On behalf of both organizations."

CHAIRMAN BIDEN: "....Welcome back, Mr. Phillips---one thing for certain, you are non-partisan in your criticism. The last time you were here---I mean this complimentarily; I mean this to establish you're bona fides here---you were not reluctant to oppose a Republican nominee, and you are not reluctant to oppose a Democratic nominee."

HOWARD PHILLIPS: "I'm not non-partisan, I'm bipartisan..."

CHAIRMAN BIDEN: "That's a better way of saying it---the floor is yours."

HOWARD PHILLIPS: "Thank you very much, sir. Senator Hatch, Senator Specter.

"When we are told that a unanimous vote is in the offing, the American people have the right to ask in all seriousness: `Do all Senators share the same standard of judgment?'

"In 1990, when you accorded me the opportunity to testify in opposition to the nomination of David Souter, I asserted that `The overarching moral issue in the political life of the United States in the last third of the 20th Century is the question of abortion. Is the unborn child a human person, entitled to the protections pledged to each of us by the Founders of the Nation?'

"The first duty of the law---and of the civil government established to enforce that law---is to prevent the shedding of innocent blood. As Notre Dame law professor Charles Rice has pointed out, `This is so, because the common law does not permit a person to kill an innocent non-aggressor, even to save his own life.'

"I have no reason to believe that Mrs. Ginsburg has personally caused human lives to be extinguished, as was clearly the case with David Souter when President Bush put his name forward. Nor do I in any other way challenge Mrs. Ginsburg's nomination on grounds of personal character.

"I do, however, urge that Mrs. Ginsburg's nomination be rejected on grounds that the standard of judgment she would bring on the overriding issue of whether the Constitution protects our God-given right to life, is a wrong standard.

"Instead of defending the humanity and divinely imparted right to life of pre-born children, she would simply be another vote for the proposition that our unborn children are less than human and that their lives may be snuffed out without due process of law, and with impunity.

"As a matter of practice and belief, Mrs. Ginsburg has failed to acknowledge or recognize that the first duty of the law is, indeed, the defense of innocent human life.

"If it is Mrs. Ginsburg's position---and it does seem to be her view---that the extinguishment of innocent unborn human lives, without due process of law, is not only Constitutionally permissible, but that those who engage in the practice of destroying unborn lives should enjoy Constitutional protection for doing so, she may have a perspective consistent with that held by members of this committee, but it is not one which is consistent with either the plain language of the Constitution or with the revulsion toward abortion which prevailed at the time when our Constitution was drafted and ratified.

"While Mrs. Ginsburg has disagreed with the reasoning in Roe v. Wade, at no point has she expressed dissatisfaction with the millions of legal abortions which were facilitated by that decision, even though she would have argued that `discrimination' rather than `privacy' was the core issue.

"By Mrs. Ginsburg's logic, it is unconstitutional discrimination to deny females the opportunity to extinguish any lives which may result from their sexual conduct. Her argument would seem to be with our Creator, inasmuch as he did not equally assign the same child-bearing function to males. Consistent with her warped perspective, Mrs. Ginsburg, as a litigator, argued that pregnancy should be treated as a disability rather than as a gift from God.

"The question of personhood, and of the humanity of the pre-born child is at the very heart of the abortion issue---in law, in morals, and in fact.

"Justice John Paul Stevens expressed his opinion in the 1986 Thornburgh case that `there is a fundamental and well-recognized difference between the fetus and a human being'. He admitted that, `indeed, if there is not such a difference, the permissibility of terminating the life of a fetus could scarcely be left to the will of the state legislatures.'

"In the Roe v. Wade decision, the Supreme Court indicated that if the unborn child is a person, the state could not allow abortion, even to save the life of the mother. In fact, the majority opinion deciding Roe v. Wade---in that opinion, the Supreme Court said that if the `personhood [of the unborn child] is established, the [pro-abortion] case, of course, collapses, for the fetus' right to life would then be guaranteed specifically by the [Fourteenth] Amendment.'

"Although my reasoning is different, I agree with Justice Stevens when he argues that, if the unborn child is recognized as a human person, there is no Constitutional basis to justify Federal protection of abortion anywhere in the United States of America. Indeed, on the contrary, if the pre-born child is, in fact, a human person created in God's image, premeditated abortion is unconstitutional in every one of the fifty states.

"Mrs. Ginsburg should be closely questioned by members of the Judiciary Committee concerning whether she believes the unborn child is a human person created in God's image.

"This is the core issue. If this is not her understanding (and it does not seem to be) she should be asked to indicate by what logic she reaches a contrary conclusion."

"It has been reported concerning Mrs. Ginsburg that `Several of her writings provide a glimpse into her approach to the Constitution. In an article in Law and Inequality: A Journal of Theory and Practice, she wrote that "a too strict jurisprudence of the framers' original intent seems to me unworkable."

"`She went on to write that adherence to "our eighteenth century Constitution" is dependent on "change in society's practices, constitutional amendment, and judicial interpretation."

"`Furthermore, in the Washington arial, helveticaity Law Quarterly, she remarked that "boldly dynamic interpretation departing radically from the original understanding" of the Constitution is sometimes necessary.'

"`And, in a speech this March at New York arial, helveticaity, Judge Ginsburg advocated using the Supreme Court to enact "social change"....`without taking giant strides...the court, through constitutional adjudication,' she said, `can reinforce or signal a green light for social change.'

"It is not surprising that different people might reach different conclusions about the intent of the Framers. But it is quite another thing for a prospective Justice of the Supreme Court to presume to substitute his or her own opinion for the plain meaning of the original document as lawfully amended.

"I hope the members of this committee will probe more deeply into Mrs. Ginsburg's present view of the opinions she expressed in these briefs, articles, and speeches. If she is unwilling to repudiate them credibly and entirely, then, even aside from her apparent failure to recognize the duty of the state to safeguard innocent humanity, she would seem to have disqualified herself from a position in which she is expected to be a guardian of the Constitution. Otherwise, a vote to confirm Mrs. Ginsburg becomes a vote to empower a permanent one-woman Constitutional Convention which never goes out of session."

"Indeed, in view of the position taken by Mrs. Ginsburg that it is the duty of Supreme Court justices to disregard the plain words and intentions of the Constitution, it is particularly important that her personal opinions be even more closely scrutinized."

"It is the particular obligation of those who might disagree with Mrs. Ginsburg's ideology and policy objectives to either oppose her nomination on the basis of such disagreement, or to henceforth cease their personal professions of conviction on those particular issues---whether they relate to abortion, to homosexuality, or to some other issue where Mrs. Ginsburg's philosophical predilections are a matter of public record.

"I see that my time is up, so I will terminate my testimony there, asking that the balance of it be submitted to the record."

CHAIRMAN BIDEN: "It will be placed in the record. I thank you very much for your testimony. I have no questions. It seems very clear that your statements are crisp and self-explanatory, as are the previous panel's, and I have no questions. I yield to my friend from Utah.

SENATOR ORRIN HATCH (R-UT): "....I have to say that...through all those Reagan-Bush years---both of those presidents were accused of using the litmus test on abortion for the selection of their Supreme Court nominees---it's pretty apparent that they did not---and, having known who did the vetting down there (who used to be a staff member of mine; I know they didn't), and, yet, in this particular case, there is no question that there was an abortion test.

"But, then again, this president won the election, and, frankly, he's picked the Supreme Court nominee, and I have to say that I personally disagree with her on this issue, but she's an excellent person and a fine judicial scholar---and I've said other things as well....Could I say just one other thing? I was interested in The Washington Post editorial---I believe it was today---on litmus tests.

"The point that needs to be made is that this Senator rejects the concept that any single litmus test should stop somebody from serving on the Supreme Court. Because if we start deciding who serves there purely on political grounds, then we will politicize that institution which, I think, means so much to all of us. And, it's precisely that position that I think rebuts that editorial. Because we have had Senators on this committee say that they would not vote for somebody who does not support Roe v. Wade. And I think that's wrong. I think that no single issue rises to the dignity of foreclosing the right of people to serve on the Supreme Court, as important as all of you believe this to be, and as important as I believe it to be."

HOWARD PHILLIPS: "Senator, may I respectfully say that, while you may choose to vote for or against on any basis, it is, in that same spirit, clear from the Constitution that every Senator may, for any reason, choose to confirm, or for any reason, choose to reject---and I would argue that the question of equal protection of innocent life---the defense of the unborn---is more important than the color of our hair or the neckties we choose to wear---and that the Supreme Court has, in effect, been permitted to become a supreme legislature. And, we are kidding ourselves if we believe that the Supreme Court is not a political body.

"As Charles Evans Hughes said very eloquently, and wryly, at an early point: The Constitution is what the members of the Supreme Court say it is. I don't happen to agree with that, but that is the prevailing situation."

SENATOR HATCH: "I have made some of those same arguments. But my point is that it is one thing to criticize for litmus tests when people hold candidates or nominees liable for them, and it's another thing to criticize for litmus tests when they don't. And, frankly, I don't think that there should be a single litmus test. Sure, the Supreme Court has it's political aspects, but it's the least politicized institution in our society, and I'd like to keep it that way as much as I can. I think there was a difference---and it's a significant difference. Personally, I felt that the editorial was somewhat anti-intellectual."

HOWARD PHILLIPS: "The American people have manifested growing dissatisfaction with their political system---with the accountability of that system, and that is because, very often, those whom they elect to office, professing to take a particular position on a certain issue, in office, do not vote in a manner consistent with that. That's one of the reasons I'm trying to build a new political party called the U.S. Taxpayers Party.

SENATOR HATCH: "I understand, I understand..."

HOWARD PHILLIPS: "Because there are a number of Senators---in the Republican Party in particular---who profess to take a strong pro-life position, who, in fact, know that in voting for the confirmation of Mrs. Ginsburg, they are voting to advance the cause of abortion. And I think that's a tragedy, and, frankly, I think it's a violation of the good-faith commitments which were made to the electorate..."

SENATOR HATCH: "I respectfully disagree with you on that, because I think that the place to make the change is in the legislature, not in the Supreme Court. I think that the place to make the change is in the elected representatives of the people---and, as you and I both well know, the vast majority of members of Congress are not on our side on this issue, and we've been losing regularly except with regard to Federal funding of abortion. So, don't try and change the Supreme Court in the sense of politicizing it and electing people who would be pro-life. I think what we've got to do is elect people who were---and, by the way, I think you could have started with President of the United States who believes this way, and he's picked a person who believes this way, and he has a right to do so. Well, we could argue about it all day---all I can say is that the place to change it is in the Congress of the United States---not the Court."

In remarks to the 15th Annual National Conservative Student Conference held under the auspices of Young America's Foundation on July 26 at George Washington arial, helveticaity, I added these comments to the debate:

"Mrs. Ginsburg complains that `exaltation of woman's unique role in bearing children has, in effect, restrained women from developing their individual talents...and has impelled them to accept a dependent, subordinate status in society.'

"This monstrously self-centered argument is disturbingly similar to that embraced by Sandra Day O'Connor, Anthony Kennedy, and David Souter---three Justices named to the Court by Presidents Reagan and Bush---when, in deciding to uphold Roe v. Wade in their 1992 Casey v. Planned Parenthood decision, they asserted that:

`....for two decades...[people] have organized intimate relationships and made choices that define their views of themselves and their places in society, in reliance on the availability of abortion in the event that contraception should fail. The ability of women to participate equally in the economic and social life of the Nation has been facilitated by their ability to control their reproductive lives.'

"But Mrs. Justice Ginsburg would go beyond even these present conclusions of those pro-abortion Republican justices---to argue that no restrictions may be placed on the liberty of pregnant women to kill their babies---no waiting periods, no parental consent, no spousal concurrence.

"Moreover, it is even the view of this militant strategist for the anti-family forces in our nation that the Federal government has a legal `duty' to use taxpayer funds to subsidize abortion.

"I don't think you'll be surprised to discover that Mrs. Ginsburg's opinions on other subjects are equally radical. She regards opposition to homosexuality as rank discrimination. She would strike down sexual predator penalties, if the victim is older than twelve years. She thinks anti-prostitution laws illegitimate...."

"Orrin Hatch says our quarrel is with Bill Clinton and the voters who elected him; but that is disingenuous sophistry. Bill Clinton did not run for the U.S. Senate from Utah on a pro-life ticket. And, in 1980, it was not Bill Clinton, but Orrin Hatch, who cleared the decks of Republican opposition to pave the way for confirmation of Jimmy Carter's appointment of Mrs. Ginsburg to the U.S. Court of Appeals. Bill Clinton never claimed to be anti-abortion. Orrin Hatch still does.

"And no pro-life voter who is serious about his beliefs can fail to insist that their avowedly anti-abortion Senators (however limited or qualified their pro-life stances may be) have a moral obligation to oppose Mrs. Ginsburg.

"This is not a game. Babies will die. Those who have their own reasons for currying favor with the anti-family establishment speak as if this were purely an intellectual exercise, but it is truly a matter of life and death.

"Mrs. Ginsburg has told us, in effect, that she is as prepared to permit babies to be aborted as was any NAZI jurist ready to authorize the killing of Jews.

"Not one of our pro-life Senators would oppose David Souter, even though he had personally authorized a convenience abortion policy which resulted in the extinguishment of the lives of many hundreds of innocent unborn children.

"But self-described pro-life Republican Senators closed their eyes to the evidence, so as not to disagree with the Republican President who named Souter to a lifetime job in which he has authority to determine whether the shedding of innocent blood shall go forth unabated.

"Nor, earlier, would pro-life Republicans vote against Sandra Day O'Connor, despite her unrepudiated pro-abortion voting record in the Arizona State Senate. After all, she was the first woman named to the Court, and Ronald Reagan had selected her."

"But what is their excuse now? It was Bill Clinton who named Mrs. Ginsburg, not Ronald Reagan or George Bush. And, unlike O'Connor and Souter, Mrs. Ginsburg has made no effort to disguise her stance on this issue. She is completely brazen in her willingness to celebrate the progress of the feminist cause, fueled by the mutilation, torture, and evisceration of tens of millions of innocent unborn human persons created in God's image.

"If this truly were one nation under God, Mrs. Ginsburg would be in the judicial process not as a judge, but as a defendant---who has been an accessory to the greatest man-made holocaust in human history."

ACTION: Contact your U.S. Senators (202-224-3121, Capitol switchboard) and urge them to vote against Ginsburg. For a complete copy of my prepared testimony, please send a self-addressed envelope (with 52-cents postage) to The Conservative Caucus, 450 Maple Avenue East, Vienna, VA 22180 with a note requesting "Ginsburg testimony." The complete text raises questions on a number of Constitutional issues in addition to abortion. Special thanks to those of you whose letters and phone calls helped pave the way for my testimony.

Susan Brackin Hirschmann, executive director of Phyllis Schlafly's Eagle Forum, urged the committee to ask Mrs. Ginsburg some questions which were inspired by Sex Bias in the U.S. Code, co-authored by Mrs. Ginsburg in 1977:

"Do you still believe, as you wrote in 1977, that the equality principle means that women must be drafted into military service any time men are? (p. 218)....

"Do you still believe, as you wrote in 1977, that there is a `need for affirmative action' for women in the armed services? (p. 218)

"Do you still believe, as you wrote in 1977, that the age of consent for sexual acts should be lowered to 12 years? (p. 102)

"Do you still believe, as you wrote in 1977, that the equality principle requires that prostitution be legalized or decriminalized? (pp. 215-216)

"Do you still believe, what you wrote in the 1974 Report of Columbia Law School Equal Rights Advocacy Project on the Legal Status of Women under Federal Law, that `replacing "Mother's Day" and "Father's Day" with a "Parent's Day" should be considered, as an observance more consistent with a policy of minimizing traditional sex-based differences in parental roles.' (p. 133)....

"Do you still believe, as you wrote in 1977, that the Boy Scouts and the Girl Scouts must change their names and become sex-integrated in order to conform to the equality principle and eliminate `stereotyped sex roles'? (pp. 145-146)

"Do you still believe, as you wrote in 1977, that the equality principle requires that college fraternities and sororities be sex integrated into `social societies'? (p. 169)

"Do you think that young adults on college campuses should not be allowed to make their own choices of organizations, but that the government should dictate that gender-based organizations are not allowed?

"Do you still believe, as you wrote in 1977, that the concept of breadwinner-husband homemaker-wife `must be eliminated from the code if it is to reflect the equality principle'? (p. 206)

"Do you still believe, as you wrote in 1977, that the equality principle `should impel development of a comprehensive program of government-supported child care'? (p. 214)...."

From Howard Phillips' speech to the Home School Legal Defense Association, November 1993

"None of Reagan's Supreme Court nominees has been willing to assert the personhood of the unborn child, and two of them, Sandra Day O'Connor and Anthony Kennedy, explicitly embraced Roe v. Wade.

"Under Bush, affairs deteriorated further. David Souter, the first Supreme Court nominee who was personally complicit in commissioning hundreds of abortions prior to his selection, was confirmed with the unanimous support of Republican Senators, who were unwilling to second-guess a president of their own party, the clear evidence of his unsuitability to the contrary notwithstanding. They're even unwilling to vote against pro-abortion Clinton nominees, such as Janet Reno and Ruth Ginsburg."

Excerpted from The Howard Phillips Issues and Strategy Bulletin, March 31, 1993

GOP SENATORS VOTED UNANIMOUSLY FOR BILL CLINTON'S PRO-ABORTION ATTORNEY GENERAL

Excerpted from The Howard Phillips Issues and Strategy Bulletin, June 30, 1993

JUDGE GINSBURG'S HUSBAND IS ROSS PEROT'S LAWYER

What is the duty of the U.S. Senator with respect to the selection of a Supreme Court nominee? The Constitution says in Article II, Section 2 that the President's power to appoint "Judges of the supreme Court" shall be "by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate".

With respect to the nomination of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, it appears that, even before hearings concerning her nomination have been conducted, leaders of both political parties have determined to give their consent.

IN THE LIBERAL LEXICON, "MODERATE" MEANS SUPPORT FOR ABORTION

We are told that Mrs. Ginsburg is a "centrist", a "moderate", despite the fact that she served from 1973 to 1980 as general counsel of the American Civil Liberties Union, and has established herself as an unqualified advocate for the availability of abortion on demand. According to a profile in the June 15 New York Times, Janet Benshoof, the president of the Center for Reproductive Law and Policy, an abortion-rights advocacy group, characterized Ginsburg as "the Thurgood Marshall of gender equality law".

Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT), appearing on "Larry King Live" the day Mrs. Ginburg's nomination was announced, said she would probably be confirmed by a vote of 100 to nothing.

Could it be that the Ginsburg nomination was one of the things which David Gergen discussed with Ross Perot immediately prior to Gergen's arrival at the White House, when Gergen flew to Bermuda to spend an idyllic weekend with Perot?

GOP HAS NO CONSTITUTIONAL STANDARD OR MORAL COMPASS

Setting aside Mrs. Ginsburg's views on a variety of other Constitutional issues, many highly questionable, is it not troubling that there is not a single "pro-life" member of the U.S. Senate, who on the issue of abortion alone, is willing to say that Mrs. Ginsburg is unsuited for nomination to the court?

The real problem is that the Democrats support Mrs. Ginsburg's confirmation because her views are consistent with their ideological standard, while the Republicans support her confirmation because they have no standard. It now appears that those millions of Americans who agree the first duty of the law is to prevent the shedding of innocent blood will have no voice and indeed no vote when the issue is resolved several weeks from now.

There are those who argue that it would be futile to oppose Mrs. Ginsburg's nomination. Clint Bolick, for example, who led the fight against the confirmation of Lani Guinier, says that conservatives ought not waste their political capital. Why is it wasteful to assert a consistent pro-life standard?

Shall only those who favor abortion be represented in debates over the confirmation of Supreme Court justices? Not if I have anything to say about it.

It is to assert the Constitutional, pro-life standard (and not with any practical hope of changing the outcome in this case) that, in behalf of the U.S. Taxpayers Party (the only genuinely pro-life political party in the United States of America), I have requested the opportunity to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee when its hearings begin on July 20. The decision as to whether I shall be granted permission rests in the hands of the Chairman of the Judiciary Committee, Senator Joseph Biden (D-DE) and its de facto ranking Republican member, Orrin Hatch (R-UT).

ACTION: Please ask Senator Biden (202-224-5042) and Senator Hatch (202-224-5251) to grant permission for me to testify in opposition to Mrs. Ginsburg's confirmation. Write to them c/o Judiciary Committee, United States Senate, 224 Dirksen Senate Office Building, Washington, D.C. 20510.

Here follow excerpts from the address I delivered to Network Cincinnati V on February 12. My theme was "A Political Strategy to Stop Abortion". If you'd like to receive a copy of the entire text with a comprehensive agenda for pro-life action, please send a stamped self-addressed envelope to: Pro-Life Speech, c/o The Conservative Caucus, Inc., 450 Maple Avenue East, Vienna, VA 22180.

"We tolerated presidents who appointed pro-abortion Federal judges, despite their solemn platform pledges to name only pro-lifers.

Excerpted from The Howard Phillips Issues and Strategy Bulletin, April 27, 1992

BUSH ADMINISTRATION THROWS THE GAME ON ROE V. WADE
REFUSES TO ASSERT THE HUMAN "PERSONHOOD" OF UNBORN CHILDREN

Where does the Bush Administration stand on abortion? The answer could be found in the encounter (Washington Post, 4/23/92, page A12) between Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens and President Bush's Solicitor General Kenneth Starr.

Stevens began: "May I ask you one rather basic question?" Starr replied: "Certainly."

"STEVENS: It affects the standard of review and everything else. What is the position of the Department of Justice on the question whether a fetus is a person within the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment?

"STARR: We do not have a position on that question, and this court has not addressed, or at least there is no justice at this court---

"STEVENS: It's addressed in Roe.

"STARR: That, that, that is correct. And it does seem to me that ultimately that is an extraordinarily difficult question which this court need not address, and it need not address it in this case....

"STEVENS: Does the United States have a position on that question?

"STARR: We do not, because we think it would be an extraordinarily difficult and sensitive issue by virtue of a number of questions that would flow from that, including equal protections and so forth."

Call it a fetus, or call it an unborn child---we all know that it is not a fish or a duck. In the 1986 Thornburgh case, Justice Stevens said "There is a fundamental and well-recognized difference between a fetus and a human being. Indeed, if there is not such a difference, the permissibility of terminating the life of a fetus could scarcely be left to the will of the State legislators."

If the unborn child is a human person, the state must prohibit abortion. If the Bush Administration were serious about fighting abortion instead of equivocating on this fundamental issue, it would acknowledge that all people (each of whom is God's creation) are human persons worthy of protection. The first duty of the law is to prevent the shedding of innocent blood.

Excerpted from Howard Phillips Issues & Strategy Bulletin of March 30, 1992

The argument most frequently heard among pro-family forces urging the reelection of George Bush is that the President has stood his ground on the abortion issue.

Truth to tell, there is more than one way to look at that. After all, by selecting David Souter for the Supreme Court, Bush has made himself the first president in American history to name a Justice who was personally responsible for the commission of abortions (as a trustee, Souter helped change the policy of Concord Memorial Hospital to encourage convenience abortions).

Some pro-lifers have said that they are in George Bush's debt, and must support him even against candidates who take a more rigorous pro-life stance. Even Pat Buchanan has said that he plans to support George Bush in the November election because of the President's pro-life stance in choosing judges.

Of course, if George Bush does have another vacancy to fill on the Supreme Court, it will probably be filled with a woman, and the President's designee is unlikely to be Phyllis Schlafly.

The first hint that George Bush is "moderating" his anti-abortion stance and building his "big tent" for the 1992 election came on the front page of the Saturday, March 21 Washington Post, where it was disclosed that Bush will now permit licensed physicians, funded by the Federal government under Title X family planning subsidies, to refer women to professional abortionists prepared to kill their babies for a fee:

"In a partial reversal of a long-standing and controversial policy, the Bush administration will permit doctors at federally funded family planning clinics to advise pregnant women on abortions....

"The long-awaited new guidelines, which will apply to some 4,000 clinics nationwide that receive money from the Health and Human Services Department, also will give doctors discretion to tell women that abortion is an option even for nonmedical reasons, officials said."

Of course, the real tragedy is that many leaders of the right-to-life movement have looked the other way as, each year, George Bush has proposed that hundreds of millions of dollars in subsidies be given to underwrite pro-abortion "family planning" groups.

Some pro-life leaders who should know better have contented themselves to applaud their hero when he takes the position that we should pay the overhead for Planned Parenthood, and be content to simply restrict their abortion counseling. This can be considered analogous to a situation in which Jews in Nazi Germany during World War II might have applauded Adolph Hitler for issuing regulations prescribing that only licensed physicians would be empowered to assign Jews to gas chambers.

Excerpted from Howard Phillips Issues & Strategy Bulletin of July 6, 1992

On June 25, as Chairman of The Conservative Caucus, I issued a press statement asserting that: "The Supreme Court's 5 to 4 ruling declaring the invocation and benediction at a Providence, Rhode Island Junior High School graduation ceremony to have been unconstitutional is more than an outrage. It should make clear to every conservative and pro-family leader that support for the re-election of George Bush on grounds of assuring the appointment of Republican judges to the Supreme Court is a misdirected priority.

"Every one of the five Supreme Court justices who voted to ban public prayer was the nominee of a Republican president. Harry Blackmun was appointed by Richard Nixon. John Paul Stevens was appointed by Gerald Ford. Sandra Day O'Connor and Anthony Kennedy were appointed by Ronald Reagan. David Souter was named by George Bush.

"Although Justice Kennedy's participation in this outrageous decision is a surprise and a particular disappointment, the votes of Mrs. O'Connor and Mr. Souter were entirely predictable on the basis of positions they took previously.

"David Souter is a legal positivist in the tradition of Oliver Wendell Holmes who changed the policy of Concord Memorial Hospital, of which he was a trustee, from one of no abortions to a policy of convenience abortions.

"Sandra Day O'Connor, in her previous service, has gone so far as to declare unconstitutional even voluntary silent prayer.

"I am proud to have publicly opposed the nominations of both Mrs. O'Connor and Mr. Souter at times when many conservatives and pro-family activists, either out of party loyalty or personal deference to the President, or even to accommodate one of his subordinates, went along for the ride down the road of humanistic statism.

"Fortunately, there are remedies available.

"First of all, the Court's ruling is, in legal terms, binding only on the parties to the case. Any school other than that involved in the particular dispute is free to engage in any religious activity it chooses (with the understanding that, if a suit were subsequently to be brought against it, the present Court would likely rule for the plaintiffs).

"Second, under Article III of the Constitution, Congress has the explicit authority to limit the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court. This authority should now be exercised. The Conservative Caucus will lead an effort to restrict the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court on the question of prayer.

"Third, the Constitution stipulates that judges shall serve during "good behavior". Good behavior, insofar as original intent is concerned, incorporated fidelity to the Constitution. Misconduct was seen to encompass far more than mere financial corruption or moral perversion. On grounds of failing to meet Constitutional standards of good behavior, it's time to call for the removal from the bench of Justices Souter, O'Connor, Kennedy, Stevens, and Blackmun."

Excerpted from Howard Phillips Issues & Strategy Bulletin of July 13, 1992

PRO-LIFERS NEED A VISION OF VICTORY

In a letter to the Chairman of the New York State Right to Life Party, I offered the following analysis of "what is to be done" in view of the Supreme Court's decision in Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey, Governor of Pennsylvania:

"...in the wake of the Supreme Court's action in Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey, Governor of Pennsylvania it is more important than ever that the right to life movement establish a true standard regarding the role of the Federal government with respect to the shedding of innocent blood and the defense of unborn children created in God's image.

"As bad as the decision itself was, some of the opinions justifying the outcome were even worse. Justices Souter, Kennedy, and O'Connor (each a putatively conservative nominee of Ronald Reagan or George Bush) asserted that `people have organized intimate relationships and made choices that define their views of themselves and their places in society in reliance of the availability of abortion in the event that contraception should fail. The ability of women to participate equally in the economic and social life of the nation has been facilitated by their ability to control their reproductive lives.'"

"It is shocking that in their majority opinion Justices Sandra Day O'Connor, Anthony Kennedy, and David Souter thus endorse abortion as a means of birth control, and argue that the pursuit of feminist career objectives justifies, in the view of the Supreme Court, the taking of innocent human life. That ruling is a shame and a disgrace. The three who have affixed their names to it have established a horrifying standard of justice which discredits them, the institution in which they serve, and those who tolerate their continuance in office.

"Even though Antonin Scalia spoke out once again in opposition to Roe v. Wade, his reasoning was fundamentally off-base, asserting as he did that the question of abortion is something that can be decided by majority vote. Underscoring that point from the perspective of his dissent he said: `My views on this matter are unchanged from those I set forth in my separate opinions in Webster v. Reproductive Health Services and Ohio v. Akron Center for Reproductive Health. The states may, if they wish, permit abortion-on-demand, but the Constitution does not require them to do so.

"`The permissibility of abortion, and the limitations upon it, are to be resolved like most important questions in our democracy: by citizens trying to persuade one another and then voting.'

Scalia is wrong. "It seems clear to me," I added, "that in guaranteeing to each state a republican form of government (Article IV, Section 4), the Constitution of the United States rejects the view that innocent human life can be snuffed out at majority whim.

"What distinguishes our republic from a democracy is the recognition that we are endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable rights and that the duty of civil government is to safeguard those God-given rights, foremost among which is the right to life. This inalienable right to life cannot legitimately be abridged by majority vote either of the U.S. Supreme Court or of any republican legislature. By that standard, Scalia has badly erred and fallen short of the mark."

"Once again, Justice John Paul Stevens, wrong-headed and misdirected as he is, has laid out the remedy for our political and judicial defeats. Stevens said `The Court in Roe carefully considered, and rejected, the state's argument "that the fetus is a `person' within the language and meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment." After analyzing the usage of "person" in the Constitution, the Court concluded that that word "has application only post-natally."...Accordingly, an abortion is not "the termination of life entitled to Fourteenth Amendment protection."

"`From this holding, there was no dissent, indeed, no member of the Court has ever questioned this fundamental proposition. Thus, as a matter of Federal constitutional law, a developing organism that is not yet a "person" does not have what is sometimes described as a "right to life." This has been, and by the Court's holding today, remains a fundamental premise of our constitutional law governing reproductive autonomy.'"

"Indeed, in a footnote, Stevens went so far as to quote Professor Dworkin who said: `The suggestion that states are free to declare a fetus a person....

assumes that a state can curtail some persons' constitutional rights by adding new persons to the constitutional population....If a state could declare trees to be persons with a constitutional right to life, it could prohibit publishing newspapers or books in spite of the First Amendment's guarantee of free speech, which could not be understood as a license to kill....Once we understand that the suggestion we are considering has that implication, we must reject it. If a fetus is not part of the constitutional population, under the national constitutional arrangement, then states have no power to overrule that national arrangement by themselves declaring that fetuses have rights competitive with the constitutional rights of pregnant women.' Dworkin, Unenumerated Rights: Whether and How Roe Should be Overruled, 59 U. Chi. L. Rev. 381, 400-401 (1992).

"Of course, Mr. Justice Stevens' quoted views are absurd, but the implication of his remarks is correct that until we have a President whose Solicitor General will affirm the personhood of the unborn child, and until we have a right to life movement which insists that Presidents appoint judges committed to recognition of the personhood of the unborn child, we will continue to lose.

"The tragedy of the right to life movement is that it no longer has the objective of eliminating abortion. Its goal is to take the lesser of three evils---to take the best that it can get in the current political context. But our job is not to `adjust' to reality, it is to change reality.

"The pro-aborts have a litmus test. They say 100%, or else you don't have our support. Indeed, without 100% support for abortion availability at taxpayer expense from conception to birth, you fail to pass their litmus test.

"Their strategy is working. When you have two sides in a conflict and one side, from the outset, insists on victory for its position, while the other, from the outset, takes a split-the-difference, `crumbs from the table' approach, those who seek victory prevail.

"It's time for the right to life movement to say: `No exceptions. The unborn child is a person created in God's image, with rights protected under the Constitution of the United States.

"`No other position is acceptable. We will support only those candidates for Federal office who agree with this position and publicly proclaim it, candidates who will oppose every penny for pro-abortion organizations from the Federal treasury, candidates who will oppose every judicial nominee who fails to take an explicit, public, pro-personhood position.'"

Excerpted from Howard Phillips Issues & Strategy Bulletin of September 7, 1992

In remarks to the Presidential nominating convention of the New York Right to Life Party on Saturday, August 29, I said (in part):

"Your party has always stood for the life principles. You have said: Here we stand. Life is precious. No exceptions. You have told the politicians, including Ronald Reagan: We will not change our principles to be pragmatic or to be popular. We will not get into your political bed unless you take the vows of our belief.

"In that respect, you have set a standard for the pro-life movement and have had influence beyond your numbers.

"You never allowed yourself to become a one-night stand for any politician, and, therefore, have been an example and an encouragement to pro-lifers everywhere.

"Today you are at a crossroads. You must decide whether you will continue to be a party of principle---pro-life principle---or whether you will change your party and change your principles in response to the courtship of Dan Quayle and advocates of the Bush-Quayle ticket.

"No one here today can foresee with certainty the outcome of the Presidential race. We don't know if New York's electoral votes will be pivotal. We don't know if the votes cast on your line will be decisive.

"If Bush gets your line, people will rightly conclude that his policies satisfied you---that they were good enough to earn your support. If Bush loses with your support, you will have gained nothing for the pro-life cause.

"If Bush wins with your support, you will bear responsibility for his past policies as well as his future actions.

"You will have placed your seal of approval:

--- on the support which both have shown for the Federal funding (which has increased from about $70 million in 1981 to some $400 million today) of Planned Parenthood and other pro-abortion organizations;

--- on the appointment of the first abortionist ever named to the U.S. Supreme Court, David Souter---on whose hands is the blood of thousands of unborn children---children whose lives were extinguished as the result of his actions and decisions.

"I urge you not to endorse this record.

"I urge you not, by your decision today, to declare it acceptable.

"If you surrender your pro-life principles for political influence, you will lose both principle and influence.

"Since both Ronald Reagan and George Bush took office in 1981---nearly twelve years ago---an estimated 18 million boys and girls have been killed by abortion.

"Not one abortion was prevented because Ronald Reagan and George Bush have occupied the White House.

"Not a single death was stopped by their pro-life platforms or pro-life speeches---not one less death because they won in 1980, 1984, and 1988.

"And, there would not have been one more death if Carter, Mondale, or Dukakis had won those elections in 1980, 1984, and 1988.

"Nor will one more life be saved by giving George Bush four more years of the policies he has provided---nor will one more be lost if Clinton wins---even if the `freedom of choice' bill is enacted.

"In 1992, there is only one way you can save babies:

• it is not by electing Bush

• it is not by electing Clinton.

"It is by electing to support a principled, pro-life strategy based on your withholding support from:

• all bureaucratic appointees,
• all judicial nominees,
• all political candidates

who refuse to publicly proclaim that every unborn child---whether conceived in or out of wedlock---whether in poverty or affluence---whether by rape or incest---is a human person created in God's image and fully entitled under the laws of God and the Constitution of the United States to have his or her right to life protected from assault.

"Article IV, Section 4, of the U.S. Constitution guarantees `to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government'.

"In a Republic, our God-given rights to life, liberty, and property may not be snuffed out by majority vote. By that standard, if the unborn child is a human person, its right to life is protected under the Constitution and abortion must be prohibited in all 50 states and the District of Columbia."

"He who forgets the past is condemned to repeat it. In 1981, I addressed a rally for life in Dallas, Texas, and said: `Last year, when we assembled by the thousands to hear Ronald Reagan, we did not pledge our loyalty to a man, but to the principles for which he stood.

"`On January 17, 1980, although there were many pro-life candidates for President, Dr. Carolyn Gerster decided to support Ronald Reagan for President, not just over George Bush, but in preference to Phil Crane, Bob Dole, and others with pro-life records.

"`Dr. Gerster made that decision, in no small part because Ronald Reagan sought her out to assure her that, if elected, he might have several Supreme Court vacancies to fill, and that every one of them, he pledged, would be pro-life.

"`Despite the concerns which many pro-lifers had about Ronald Reagan's pro-abortion record while Governor of California, they decided to trust his expression of deep regret for the past and his solemn pledge of pro-life action in the future.

"`When the Republican National Platform to which Ronald Reagan committed himself promised: "We will work for the appointment of judges at all levels of the judiciary who respect traditional family values and the sanctity of innocent human life" then, despite profound misgivings about the Vice Presidential selection of George Bush---who had differed with Mr. Reagan's pro-life stand---the right to life movement and the religious right enthusiastically went to work for the election of the Reagan-Bush ticket, and the candidates for Senator and Representative who supported it.

"`The [1980] Republican Platform also stated: "...we affirm our support of a constitutional amendment to restore protection of the right to life for unborn children. We also support the Congressional efforts to restrict the use of taxpayers' dollars for abortion. We protest the Supreme Court's intrusion into the family structure through its denial of the parents' obligation and right to guide their minor children."

"`When pro-lifers urged support for Ronald Reagan, they assumed a moral responsibility to assure fulfillment of the vow of Mr. Reagan which formed the basis for their action.

"`In effect, pro-family leaders told millions of Americans: Ronald Reagan has made a commitment to us. We are prepared to trust him and to rely on his expressed intentions. Now, we are asking you to trust us, to trust our judgment, and to help elect Reagan and his team, because of the commitments which were made.

"`At that time, when we told others to follow our leadership, for the sake of their principles, for the sake of their devotion to protecting unborn children, we assumed a moral duty to assure delivery on the commitment, fulfillment of the pledge.

"`That is why we are here today: because it appears that the pledge has been disregarded, that the solemn vows have been violated.

"`It is not just Sandra O'Connor:

"`-- This year, while cutting budgets in most areas, the Reagan Administration proposed an astounding increase of more than 30% in the population control programs of the Agency for International Development.

"`-- Pro-abortion activists, such as Mary Louise Smith, Mimi Weyferth, and Julia Chang Bloch are receiving high administration appointments to agencies whose activities relate in some important way to abortion.

"`-- According to a report in The Washington Post, not one of the twelve people who have thus far been nominated for other important Federal judgeships had been asked about their views on abortion, prior to selection.

"`-- The IRS continues to provide abortion clinics with tax deductible status; military hospitals continue to perform abortions,

"`-- and, at a time when it has been decided to cut back on expenditures previously adjudged necessary to assure an adequate national defense, 70.8 million dollars is still being provided to Planned Parenthood and its affiliates.

"`Some of that to which we object may be dismissed as oversights or errors of omission. Other concerns, it is argued, will be corrected with the passage of time.

"`But the issue this evening is Sandra O'Connor.

"`The facts about her public record are now clear beyond dispute:

"`As an Arizona State Senator, she voted twice for abortion on demand through the ninth month of pregnancy; she co-sponsored a proposal to permit abortion without parental consent; she promoted ERA; she opposed the Human Life Amendment; and she failed to oppose abortions at a taxpayer-funded facility.

"`With these facts, in the light of President Reagan's pro-life promises, only these conclusions can be drawn:

"`1. Either Sandra O'Connor has changed her views and is no longer a pro-abortion feminist, or

"`2. President Reagan appointed Mrs. O'Connor without being fully informed of her public record, or

"`3. President Reagan chose to disregard the solemn pro-life promises which he made.

"`It is my sincere hope that the former alternative is operative and that Mrs. O'Connor no longer favors the legalization of abortion---or that, at the very least, she is now prepared to condemn and overturn the Roe v. Wade decision, restricting states from legislating against abortion.

"`In the second case, if President Reagan made his nomination on the basis of incomplete information or incorrect information, he will face the difficult but morally compelling duty of acknowledging his error and withdrawing Mrs. O'Connor's nomination.

"`President Reagan's failure to so act, in such circumstances, or a discovery that he had otherwise consciously chosen to disregard his solemn pro-life campaign pledges would greatly diminish his moral standing.

"`We cannot compel the President to act as we believe right, but we must pray and urge that he will do what is right---because so much is at stake.

"`Those U.S. Senators who are called upon to advise and consent with respect to the O'Connor nomination also are responsible for the outcome and none of those Senators have a greater responsibility to ferret out the current moral convictions and legal philosophy of Mrs. O'Connor than those who understand the moral urgency of the pro-life cause and who pledged themselves to that cause during their campaigns for office.

"`But as great as is the responsibility of the President and the members of the U.S. Senate to determine Mrs. O'Connor's suitability, no less real is our duty to keep faith with our principles and to keep faith with those who, in 1980, relied on our representations of trust concerning candidate Reagan and his political associates.

"`The future of the pro-life cause in America may well be determined by how we respond to this challenge.

"`The Supreme Court has, in fact, become a Supreme Legislature, and it is our right and duty to oppose the confirmation of any person who might be legislating against us for the next twenty or thirty years.

"`Again, we pray that we will learn during the Senate hearings that Mrs. O'Connor has repudiated her past pro-abortion record. If so, while her nomination might be criticized on other grounds, the moral urgency of opposing her confirmation will have been removed.

"`But, if the record stands and the nomination is not withdrawn, we must keep faith with our principles, our commitments, and our supporters by opposing Mrs. O'Connor's nomination.

"`Our failure to so act in such circumstances could only be viewed as an act of pure political expedience---retreat in the face of bad political odds---which would eliminate the credibility of any future claim that our movement is motivated by a genuine moral opposition to abortion.

"`Our duty is to keep faith with the unborn, with our promises, and with almighty God---even if we don't get a single vote in the United States Senate, or on the editorial pages of our newspapers.'"

We didn't get a single vote in the U.S. Senate against Mrs. O'Connor, and subsequently she has voted consistently against the pro-life position on the Supreme Court. But most of the pro-life movement supported Reagan for reelection in 1984, and Bush in 1988. This year, despite four more years of promises ignored and pledges betrayed, George Bush can once again count on the "religious right" to support him, on the basis of "pro-family" rhetoric---which camouflages his anti-family policies.

Until this year the New York Right to Life Party was the exception---willing to stand alone, putting principles before pragmatism. That is no longer true. They have now joined the crowd and, except for the U.S. Taxpayers Party and its affiliates, there is no political party which puts the babies first---before the flattery of political phonies.

Excerpted from Howard Phillips Issues & Strategy Bulletin of September 28, 1992

What's the real story on the appointment by President Bush of Steven J. McAuliffe to be a Federal judge?

As reported in The New York Times (9/10/92, page B8), he is the husband of Christa McAuliffe, the schoolteacher who died in the explosion of the space shuttle Challenger. What The Times does not mention is that McAuliffe was Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Joe Biden's New Hampshire campaign manager when Biden sought the Democratic presidential nomination in 1988. Moreover, he was one of the principal character witnesses for Bush's first Supreme Court nominee, the pro-abortion, pro-homosexual David Souter of New Hampshire.

The pro-family President remembers his friends.

Excerpted from Howard Phillips Issues & Strategy Bulletin of December 7, 1992

The Reagan-Bush Supreme Court had one last going away present for pro-lifers who argued during the 1992 campaign that, despite George Bush's faults, he merited reelection on the basis of "pro-life" Republican judicial appointments. As reported in The Washington Times (12/1/92, page A1), "The Supreme Court yesterday refused to consider a major abortion case for the first time in 20 years, effectively killing a Guam law that forbids most abortions.

"By a vote of 6-3, justices let stand an appeals court ruling on the Guam law that said it would be `wrong and presumptuous' to overturn the historic 1973 Roe v. Wade decision, which said women have a fundamental right to choose an abortion.

"Justices John Paul Stevens, Harry Blackmun, Sandra Day O'Connor, Anthony Kennedy, David Souter and Clarence Thomas opted not to review the case. Chief Justice William Rehnquist and Justices Antonin Scalia and Byron White dissented....

"The 1990 law in Guam, a U.S. territory in the Pacific, bans all abortions except those necessary to save a woman's life or to prevent `grave impairment' to her health. The statute makes it a criminal offense for doctors to perform other abortions....

"...Justice Thomas was conspicuously absent from yesterday's dissent. Had he joined the dissenters, the case would have been argued before the Supreme Court."

Excerpted from Howard Phillips Issues & Strategy Bulletin of February 4, 1991

The New York Times reported (1/23/91) that "A closely divided Supreme Court set aside a Florida death sentence today, finding that the State Supreme Court had ignored evidence that under Florida law could have weighed against execution....

"Justice Souter who has yet to write his first Supreme Court opinion, joined the majority opinion of Justice Sandra Day O'Connor....She was joined in this case by the Court's three liberals, Justices Thurgood Marshall, John Paul Stevens, and Harry A. Blackmun.

"There was a blistering dissenting opinion written by Justice Byron R. White and joined by the Court's three most conservative members. Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist and Justices Antonin Scalia and Anthony M. Kennedy. They said the majority had engaged in a `desperate stretch' to find a basis for reversing the death sentence and had given `far too little deference to state courts that are attempting to apply their own law faithfully and responsibly.'"

The Conservative Caucus is the only national organization which opposed the confirmation of both Sandra Day O'Connor and David Souter on the basis of a careful review of their prior opinions indicating that on key issues, including abortion, homosexuality, gun control, and the death penalty, neither Souter nor O'Connor would be reliable supporters of the constitutional conservative position.

Excerpted from Howard Phillips Issues & Strategy Bulletin of August 20, 1990

NOMINATION OF DAVID SOUTER TO U.S. SUPREME COURT HAILED BY NEW HAMPSHIRE HOMOSEXUAL LEADER

The Washington Blade (7/27/90), a homosexual newspaper in the nation's capital, quotes Marcus Hurn, "a New Hampshire Gay activist and law professor who is running for a state House of Representatives seat on the Republican ticket" as saying with respect to David Souter, President Bush's New Hampshire-based nominee to the U.S. Supreme Court: "[Souter's] opinion drew a limit on anti-Gay legislation that has stuck ever since. I was surprised and quite tickled with the undertone of the opinion. I think Souter is the best the Gay and Lesbian community could hope for. He has already clearly accepted the proposition that Gay discrimination is unconstitutional. That's very rare for a conservative....

The 1987 opinion in question, while upholding the constitutionality of a ban on homosexuals becoming foster or adoptive parents, struck down a provision that would have banned sodomites from becoming licensed day-care center operators. Souter argued that day-care operators do not have close enough contact with children to be characterized as role models.

"I think he would listen to Gay people conscientiously [if confirmed to the bench]," said Professor Horn. "He has warm social relations with Gay and Lesbian people....he has been sensitized for some time because he is a 50-year-old bachelor. He's had to live with whispers behind his back all the time."

Judie Brown's American Life Lobby urges opponents of abortion to contact U.S. Senator Charles Grassley (R-IA) of the Senate Judiciary Committee to ask Supreme Court nominee David Souter: "1. To explain why he signed onto Smith v. Cote (July 9, 1986), a decision which encouraged abortions in cases of possible birth defects; and 2. Why he never challenged---in eight years as president of the board of Concord Hospital, N.H.---the policy of even second trimester abortions to be performed at the hospital; 3. Why did he sign onto the Smith opinion, which would encourage abortion, when his position as an overseer of Dartmouth Medical School---and the Dartmouth Hitchcock Hospital, which performs abortions through the end of the second trimester ---would appear to create a clear conflict of interest?"

According to published accounts, Judge Souter was a member of the board of trustees of Concord Hospital from 1973 to 1985, serving as president from 1978 to 1984. He was a member of the board of overseers of Dartmouth Medical School from 1981 to 1987.

An article by Anne Kornhauser in the Legal Times (7/30/90) quotes the Concord (N.H.) Monitor for July 25 as reporting that "in 1973 in the wake of the Roe decision, Souter sat on the board of trustees of the Concord Hospital when the board unanimously approved a policy of allowing abortions...."

In a May, 1977 interview with the Manchester Union-Leader (reprinted in The Washington Times, 8/08/90), George Bush's Supreme Court nominee, David Souter, had this to say about abortion: "`Let's say somebody performed an abortion, which would not be legal in New Hampshire---so long as the criminal law is concerned---in the eight [sic] month. Let's assume you had a viable fetus. If that fetus died as a result of the abortion, that would not be murder or manslaughter. That would be no offense at all the way I read the statute,' he told the newspaper.

"`If the fetus was born and lived, of course, it would no longer be a fetus but a child, and the murder and the manslaughter laws would apply,' Judge Souter said. `But if it was killed in the process of administering the abortion, it could not be prosecuted as manslaughter or murder.'"

According to an article in the Legal Times for July 30, "At Harvard Law School, Souter impressed his classmates with the precision of his arguments, and with his

talent for mimicking some of the more extreme right-wing views of the nouveau, Cold War conservatives of the day. The legions of loyalists to the lost cause of 1964 Republician [sic] presidential nominee Barry Goldwater seemed alien to him...."

Excerpted from Howard Phillips Issues & Strategy Bulletin of September 24, 1990

PHILLIPS URGES BUSH TO WITHDRAW SOUTER NOMINATION "MORALLY DISQUALIFIED" BY DECISION TO AUTHORIZE ABORTIONS

In a press release issued on the day of my scheduled testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committe in opposition to the confirmation of David Souter to be a justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, I urged President George Bush to withdraw his nomination:

"As a member of the board of trustees of Concord Hospital from 1971 to 1985, Judge Souter participated in decisions which resulted in the performance of many hundreds of abortions at Concord Hospital even though the hospital was under no legal obligation to provide facilities for these abortions.

"It is not enough for Judge Souter to say that his personal views would have no bearing on his decisions as a justice of the Supreme Court. The common law does not permit a person to kill an innocent non-aggressor, even to save his own life. The unborn human beings whose deaths were occasioned by the decision, the word, and the vote of David Souter were never accorded due process of law. Their right to privacy was never acknowledged. Not only did Mr. Souter fail to come to the defense of these innocent creatures of God, he was actively complicit in their destruction."

SOUTER'S "CONVENIENCE ABORTIONS" WERE NOT MANDATED

"Most of the abortions performed at Concord Hospital were not limited to cases of rape or incest or to save the life of the mother. These were convenience abortions, in no way mandated by law.

"The fact that Mr. Souter apparently evidenced no qualms about authorizing these abortions is a troubling indication that, as a justice of the Supreme Court, he would place very few restrictions on abortion. Certainly if he recognized the unborn child to be a human being with full rights of personhood, he would have been morally obliged to oppose the performance of any and all abortions at facilities under his control and direction.

"It would be no more convincing for an Adolph Eichmann to say that his personal views on gas chambers had no bearing on legal decisions he might make as a member of the Nazi high court than it is now plausible for a David Souter to argue that his role as an accomplice to abortion has no bearing on his suitability to be a justice of the U.S. Supreme Court.

"The 1988 Republican platform said that `the unborn child has a fundamental right to life which cannot be infringed. We therefore reaffirm our support for a human life amendment to the Constitution, and we endorse legislation to make clear that the Fourteenth Amendment's protections apply to unborn children.'....

"When Sandra Day O'Connor was being considered for confirmation as a justice of the Supreme Court, she refused to fully delineate her legal position. She did make clear, however, her personal view that abortion is morally objectionable. It now seems obvious why Mr. Souter is unwilling to disclose his personal views on abortion and why Warren Rudman, a pro-abortion member of the U.S. Senate, is so enthusiastic about the choice.

"George Bush should be given the benefit of the doubt that he was unaware of David Souter's record of complicity in the abortions performed at Concord Hospital when he nominated Mr. Souter to be a justice of the U.S. Supreme Court," Phillips acknowledged. "However," he concluded, "the facts are now in. Not only is Judge Souter morally disqualified by reason of his role as an abortion accomplice, more to the point, President Bush, because of the promises he made in 1988, is morally obliged to withdraw the Souter nomination."

Responding to questions from Senator Arlen Specter (R-PA) following my September 19 testimony, I said: "[T]here is a fundamental distinction between [my views and] the position of the groups such as NOW, NARAL, Planned Parenthood, and so forth, which urge a NO vote on Judge Souter. Their position is that they are not absolutely certain that Judge Souter is going to be with them to their satisfaction. I, on the other hand, am absolutely certain (on the basis of the record) that Judge Souter does have a permissive view toward abortion. The implication of your prefatory remark was that this is a `single issue' concern---and perhaps it may be for NOW or Planned Parenthood---I'll let them speak for themselves. To me this transcends any single issue. To me, the heart of the law is---and I speak as a layman---the heart of the law is that the system of justice is to prevent the shedding of innocent blood. The purpose of the system of justice is to protect the innocent. The predicate to the Constitution is the Declaration of Independence which says `We are endowed by our Creator', and which talks about a firm reliance on Divine Providence. I believe that we all are created beings, and that the unborn child is a created being. If the rights of that created being are denied by a person appointed to the Court---denied in more than a theoretical way, but denied in a sense that he has actually been complicit in the performance of abortion, I think you've got something very serious."

Other points I made in comments to Senator Joseph Biden (D-DE), the committee chairman, Senator Specter, and Senator Gordon Humphrey (R-NH) were these:

"*** [T]here are many liberal Democratic United States Senators who vote for a `pro-choice' position who still find abortion morally repugnant, but Judge Souter was not even willing to say that."

"*** [C]onservatives in America have a lot to learn from the civil rights movement, because if President Bush or President Carter had named to the Supreme Court a man who was a trustee of a country club that had voted to exclude blacks, that man or woman would have ipso facto been disqualified from service on the Supreme Court....

"But, here is a man who voted for policies which resulted in the death of many hundreds of unborn children, and I profoundly regret that there are no right-to-life organizations and conservative organizations standing up and at least expressing profound concern about that fact.

"*** I found his most troubling answer the one which he gave to Senator Thurmond at the very beginning of the hearings when he said that the power of the law comes from the people---I don't believe that, I believe it comes from God. And, having read, and reread two or three times, David Souter's senior honors thesis, it seems to me he still believes many of the things that were very much implied as reflecting his beliefs in that senior honors thesis at Harvard. It seems to me that this is a man who totally rejects higher law authority and that he is purely a legal technician....

"*** Senator [Humphrey], President Lincoln agreed with you [Note: About rejecting unlawful Supreme Court decisions]. He was politically active during the period following the Dred Scott decision and he refused to accept the Dred Scott decision as applying to anything more than the parties to the case and that is my view of the Roe v. Wade decision."

As reported by The New York Times (9/15/90), during the Senate Judiciary Committee hearings, Senator Charles Grassley (R-IA) "posed a series of questions about `government by the judiciary,' evidently expecting Judge Souter to agree with him about the `fundamentally anti-democratic' nature of `unaccountable' Federal judges creating new constitutional rights.

"But Judge Souter rejected the bait, instead telling Senator Grassley that if other branches of Government refuse to deal with a `profound social problem' and that problem is within the courts' jurisdiction, `ultimately it does and must land before the bench of the judiciary.'

"`Nature and political responsibility, constitutional responsibility, abhor a vacuum,' Judge Souter said. He also told Senator Grassley that while judges should not `create' new rights, they have a responsibility to search for and `recognize' rights that are `implicit in the text of the Constitution,' although not spelled out there. [Note: How will he rule on laws prohibiting homosexual behavior?]

"Senator Arlen Specter, a moderate Republican from Pennsylvania, was openly amused by the exchange. Approaching reporters during a brief recess, he said of Judge Souter's answers: `I don't think you'll find a more liberal statement anywhere. It was out of Brennan's left pocket.'

Judge Souter also said, in response to a question earlier in the day, that: "Justice Brennan is going to be remembered as one of the most fearlessly principled guardians of the American Constitution that it has ever had and ever will have."

Excerpted from Howard Phillips Issues & Strategy Bulletin of October 1, 1990

DID SOUTER COUNSEL BREAKING THE LAW?
IF HE DISAPPROVED OF LAWBREAKING, WHY WON'T HE SAY SO?
IF HE URGED IT THEN, HAS HE CHANGED HIS MIND NOW?

If liberal Democratic Senators had real concerns about whether or not Bush appointee David Hackett Souter would wind up voting their way, on abortion and other issues, they could very easily have blocked his confirmation by pressing him on one simple point: Did Souter, serving as a proctor while enrolled as a graduate student at Harvard Law School, providing guidance counseling to a Harvard College undergraduate, advise that undergraduate and his girlfriend to break the law? If he did, would he now acknowledge that he was seriously in error to have so acted? If he did not advise the student entrusted to his care to obey the law, does he now regret having failed to do so?

Surely Souter, without revealing more about his personal views concerning abortion, could have indicated one way or the other whether he felt, prior to the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision, at a time (1964) when abortion was illegal in Massachusetts (where the counseling occurred) it was appropriate to do anything but recommend to the young people who looked to him for moral leadership that the law be obeyed.

It would be one thing for him in 1964 to have counseled breaking or avoiding duly enacted criminal laws prohibiting abortion. That would be bad enough. But it is far worse, in 1990, for him to decline to state whether, as a prospective Supreme Court justice, he feels citizens are obliged to comply with the criminal laws of the states in which they reside. Silence implies, at least, a lack of certitude.

Believe me, if Ronald Reagan's Supreme Court nominee Douglas Ginsburg (who was knocked out of the box for having confessed to smoking marijuana years earlier) had made such an admission, it would have been a front-page headline in every newspaper and the lead story on the evening news. Use of marijuana is wrong. But isn't killing unborn human beings more serious than smoking pot? Ginsburg was perceived as dangerous to the judicial left. His youthful misjudgment was seen as scandalous. Souter is regarded as a friend and ally of the moral relativists, so he was handled with kid gloves.

Here is how I put it to Senator Gordon Humphrey (R-NH) in my closing testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee on September 19: "Now, you tried to ask him a question at the very end of your initial interrogation of him about his contact with that young couple when he was a Harvard law student counseling a young Harvard student and the girlfriend of that student, who had indicated to him that the young lady was contemplating a self-induced abortion. And Judge Souter in response to your inquiry and that of other Senators was very reluctant to reply.

"I find that reluctance to reply in and of itself very troubling. You know, young people throughout the country look to the Supreme Court of the United States, not just as the guardian of liberty but as the guardian of law. And if Judge Souter was unwilling to say that, yes, he told that young woman to obey the law and to reaffirm now that, yes, he told them to obey the law, or that if he told them to break the law and procure an illegal abortion he was wrong---if he today is unwilling to say that, then I don't think the right example will be set for our country if he serves on the Supreme Court of the United States.

"Mr. Rauh, speaking for the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, suggested that Mr. Souter be recalled to consider other questions. I would suggest he be recalled until it be determined whether as an adult, as a student at Harvard Law School, he advised a young woman whom he had taken under his professional care as a proctor to break the law. I think the people are entitled to know that. And if he did advise her to break the law, the people are entitled to know whether he now regrets that decision and would change it."

Souter had opened up the line of inquiry when, on September 13, in response to a pro-abortion monologue from Senator Howard Metzenbaum, he had said, "Senator, your question comes as a surprise to me. I was not expecting that kind of question, and you have made me thinking [sic] of something that I have not thought of for 24 years.

"When I was in law school, I was on the board of freshmen advisors at Harvard College. I was a proctor in a dormitory at Harvard College. One afternoon, one of the freshmen who was assigned to me, I was his advisor, came to me and he was in pretty rough emotional shape and we shut the door and sat down, and he told me that his girlfriend was pregnant and he said she is about to try to have a self-abortion and she does not know how to do it. He said she is afraid to tell her parents what has happened and she is afraid to go to the health services, and he said will you talk to her, and I did.

"I know you will respect the privacy of the people involved, and I will not try to say what I told her. But I spent two hours in a small dormitory bedroom that afternoon, in that room because that was the most private place we could get so that no one in the next suite of rooms could hear, listening to her and trying to counsel her to approach her problem in a way different from what she was doing, and your question has brought that back to me."

Gordon Humphrey followed up on September 14 by asking "Yesterday you said you counseled a couple whose union had resulted in conception, in this case an unplanned pregnancy. That was in 1966?"

And, Souter replied: "I think that was in 1964 or 1965."

Senator Humphrey: "My information is that in no State was elective abortion legal until 1977 [sic---corrected to 1967], California being the first State to permit it. I don't want to even approach an intrusion into the privacy relationship in terms of identity or outcome, but did you counsel the couple to remain within the law?"

Judge Souter: "Without invading the privacy which they have a right to expect, I think the only thing, Senator, that I can tell you is that I counseled them against taking the kind of, in fact, dangerous action which one of them had described to me they had in mind."

Liberal Democratic Vermont Senator Patrick Leahy (on September 17) queried Souter this way: "Last week, you gave us a very powerful story, a very moving story, about the counseling you gave to a young woman who faced the question of an unwanted pregnancy. Obviously, it is a very personal issue. You counseled that woman. Many, many, many more face the same decision each year. You did not tell us what your advice was, and I understand, from the two or three times you have been asked that question in various forms, you do not intend to tell us what that was.

"Might I ask you this: Would your advice to that woman be any different today now that abortion has been legal for nearly 20 years?"

And, Souter replied: "With respect, I do not think I can answer that question."

No one pressed Souter for a response. It would have been very easy for Judiciary Committee Chairman Joe Biden (D-DE) or the other liberals in control of the committee to say: "Judge Souter, before we vote on whether to confirm you, we need to know whether you think people have an obligation to comply with the laws on the books?"

It is understandable why a Teddy Kennedy would feel uncomfortable pressing Judge Souter on whether he had advised a young couple to procure an illegal abortion, but certainly if a Patrick Leahy, or Howard Metzenbaum, or Paul Simon had wanted to prevent a conservative jurist from being confirmed, they had been handed the weapon to administer the death blow.

Excerpted from Howard Phillips Issues & Strategy Bulletin of October 15, 1990

Stuart Taylor, Jr. was formerly chief legal correspondent for the New York Times. He now scribbles for The Washington Post in which on Sunday, September 30 he predicted that, in his choice of David Hackett Souter, George Bush would get exactly what he wanted: a judge with a Bush view of abortion.

As Taylor put it, "If Souter votes to reaffirm broad judicial protection of abortion rights, Bush can give a shrug, disavow (again) the anti-abortion `litmus test' for judges in each GOP platform since 1980, and say something like, `Just goes to show, you never can tell what these Supreme Court guys are gonna do.'

"But history teaches that you usually can tell what a nominee will do on the issues that loom large at the time of appointment....

"...it is naive to assume that Bush cares deeply about getting Roe overruled.

"To the contrary, the record, beginning with Bush's flip-flop from his early 1980 position that Roe v. Wade `was right,' suggests his position on abortion is shaped not by moral conviction but by political calculation. While Bush's anti-abortion posture is still essential to sustain his support among conservatives, his political fortunes might well be hurt if the court overruled Roe and further energized pro-choice voters who have already sent Republican candidates scrambling for cover.

"That's why Bush's look-Ma-no-litmus-test approach makes perfect sense. The surest way to insulate himself from blame for whatever Souter ends up doing is to make a virtue of ignorance."

Excerpted from Howard Phillips Issues & Strategy Bulletin of November 12, 1990

Calling referral for abortion "a normal professional responsibility", Supreme Court Justice David Souter (who received the confirmation votes of every "pro-life" member of the U.S. Senate and whose nomination was either endorsed or accepted by every pro-family organization in the United States except for The Conservative Caucus), stuck to his previously demonstrated views that unborn children have no rights of personhood and that public institutions have an affirmative obligation to make abortion available.

As reported by The Washington Times (10/31/90): "In the most dramatic moment of the hour-long oral argument" on the question of whether Federal regulations barring the use of public money to promote abortion are Constitutional, "Souter forced Solicitor General Kenneth Starr to concede that the regulations would prohibit a physician from referring a woman to abortion services" for any reason whatsoever.

"The Reagan administration directives -- upheld by one federal appeals court but struck down by two others -- prohibit federally funded clinics from providing abortion counseling or from referring women to abortion services....

"Adopted in 1988 by HHS, the rules affect the 4,000 clinics that share about $200 million annually under Title X of the Public Service Health Act., The clinics serve 5 million poor women.

"The regulations were challenged by the state of New York, New York City, Planned Parenthood, the American Civil Liberties Union and several clinics that provide abortion services....

"Lisa Kaeser, policy analyst at the Alan Guttmacher Institute, said pro-choice forces are `encouraged by the fact that [Souter] tried to bring the whole case back into the real world.'"

Pro-abortion New York Times reporter Linda Greenhouse observed (10/31/90) that "Justice Souter's emphasis today on the doctor's role in making medical judgments did appear to reflect his service as president of the board of Concord Hospital in New Hampshire as well as his six years as an overseer of the Dartmouth Medical School. In his confirmation hearing, he defended his vote as a hospital trustee to permit the hospital's medical staff to perform abortions there."

Another pro-abortion scribbler, USA Today's Tony Mauro belatedly reported (10/31/90) that "...some said that Souter's tack should have come as no surprise.

"`He really may have the most experience on this issue of any of the justices,' said Elliot Mincberg, who researched Souter's past for the liberal group People for the American Way. [Note: PAW declined to oppose Souter's nomination.]

"Not only has Souter served on two hospital boards in New Hampshire, but he also joined in a New Hampshire Supreme Court ruling that suggested a doctor could be held liable for failing to mention abortion as an option."

Excerpted from Howard Phillips Issues & Strategy Bulletin of September 3, 1990

SOUTER DENIES CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHT TO KEEP AND BEAR ARMS

According to The New York Times [8/19/90]: "When David H. Souter was Attorney General of New Hampshire, his office once argued that the Constitution does not guarantee individual citizens the right to carry firearms.

"In a 1976 brief filed under the name of Mr. Souter, who is now President Bush's nominee to the Supreme Court, his office asserted that the `Second Amendment does not create any right in U.S. to possess any and all weapons regardless of state regulation.' Instead, the brief said, the amendment `concerns the authority of the state to keep and raise militia.'

"The brief was made public Friday by the Center to Prevent Handgun Violence, a gun-control advocacy group, which was heartened by the position taken under Mr. Souter's name.

"The Second Amendment states, `A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.'

"The debate over what that wording means has long been at the heart of the battle over gun control. Groups like the National Rifle Association cite `the right of the people to keep and bear arms' in arguing against the tightening of gun laws, while gun-control advocates contend that the amendment addresses only the right of the states to maintain militias and does not apply to individual citizens."

Confirmation of David Souter to be a Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. At the time of the Senate vote, it was a matter of public record that Souter, in his role as trustee, had led an effort to shift the policies of two hospitals from zero abortions to convenience abortions. (Y-90, N-9, Roll Call 259, October 2, 1990)