John Ashcroft:
Racist, anti-woman nominee for attorney general
By Phil
Wilayto
It would be hard to find a more reactionary nominee for
the position of U.S. attorney general than John Ashcroft. The
58-year-old Republican senator from Missouri and former
two-term governor of that state is well known for his
extremist views on abortion and the death penalty. He is also
an outspoken defender of the Confederacy who has used his
political power to block appointments of Black judges and
defeat civil rights legislation.
Ashcroft and abortion rights
Ashcroft supports enacting a federal law and amending the
Constitution to ban abortions even when a woman has been
raped or is the victim of incest. He has advocated proposals
in Congress so broad they could have been used to ban common
forms of contraception, including birth-control pills and
IUDs. He supported the Hyde Amendment, which prohibits the
use of federal funds for abortion services and promoted laws
requiring parental notification and consent.
Ashcroft also helped lead the fight for the bill pushed by
anti-choice extremists that would impose criminal and civil
penalties against doctors who perform so-called "partial
birth" abortions.
As attorney general, Ashcroft would be responsible for
enforcing the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act,
passed following the murder of a doctor at a Florida clinic.
Would he find a way to void this law?
Ashcroft would also be responsible for reviewing and
helping to select potential nominees for the federal bench.
This includes lower court judges and Supreme Court justices
who may rule on issues dealing with reproductive freedom. He
would also represent the Bush administration's position on
issues within the courts--including the Supreme Court.
Civil rights and the death penalty
In an editorial urging the Senate to "investigate Mr.
Ashcroft's opposition to civil rights, women's rights,
abortion rights and to judicial nominees with whom he
disagrees," the St. Louis [Missouri] Post-Dispatch recalled
that "Mr. Ashcroft has built a career out of opposing school
desegregation in St. Louis and opposing African-Americans for
public office."
Bob Jones University gave Ashcroft an honorary degree in
1999, and he was proud to accept it. Bush was criticized for
speaking at this racist, ultra-right university during his
presidential campaign.
Ashcroft was "credited" with engineering the defeat of the
nomination to the federal bench of Missouri State Supreme
Court Justice Ronnie White, an African American. White is
somewhat moderate on the issue of the death penalty. As one
writer in the Post-Dispatch put it, "Ash croft's success in
rounding up 54 Republican votes was an unmistakable signal to
state judges like White that if they challenge death
sentences--no matter how infrequently and no matter the
cause--they risk being barred from higher judicial
office."
At a news conference after the announcement of Ashcroft's
nomination, Bush said, "This is a person who believes in
civil rights for all citizens."
While Bush and Ashcroft are directly identified with
capital punishment, it was President Clinton who signed the
1996 Effective Death Penalty Act, which effectively
eliminated the right of habeas corpus in death penalty
appeals on the federal level.
In 1998, Ashcroft gave an interview to the Southern
Partisan, a South Carolina quarterly promoting the
Confederacy. Ashcroft said, "Your magazine also helps set the
record straight. You've got a heritage of doing that, of
defending Southern patriots like [Robert E.] Lee, [Stonewall]
Jackson and [Jefferson] Davis. Traditionalists must do more.
I've got to do more. We've all got to stand up and speak in
this respect, or else we'll be taught that these people were
giving their lives, subscribing their sacred fortunes and
their honor to some perverted agenda."
Like slavery. The people Ashcroft named were two leading
generals and the president of the slavocracy.
Gov't funding of
'faith-based' institutions
Ashcroft is author of the landmark Charitable Choice
provision of the 1996 welfare reform law, which made it legal
for charities, churches and other faith-based organizations
to deliver publicly funded services under contracts and
vouchers with the states. The provision allows
government-funded religious groups to refuse to hire people
of different faiths and to promote their own religious
beliefs to the people they are paid to serve.
This development would be strengthened and expanded by the
passage of the Ashcroft-sponsored "Charitable Choice
Expansion Act." In addition to being a violation of the
constitutional separation of church and state, this act would
accelerate the trend towards privatizing government-funded
social services, would weaken public sector unions, and would
deprive the community of the protection of the present
requirements for certification, oversight and
inspections.
This past December, Ashcroft became the first U.S. senator
to lose a re-election bid to a dead opponent, after
Democratic Gov. Mel Carnahan died in a plane crash during the
campaign. Carnahan's widow was then named to the post.
This article is copyright under a Creative
Commons License.
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