Phil Wilayto
December 31, 2000

Anti-Woman, Pro-Confederacy Racist Nominated for Attorney General

MILWAUKEE --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 & 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 the pill 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 that 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. 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.

Ashcroft, Civil Rights & 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 - the one Bush got in trouble for speaking at during the presidential campaign - gave Ashcroft an honorary degree in 1999, and he was proud to accept it.

Ashcroft was "credited" with engineering the defeat of the nomination to the federal bench of Missouri State Supreme Court Justice Ronnie White. White, who is African American, is somewhat moderate on the issue of the death penalty. As one writer in the Post-Dispatch put it, "Ashcroft'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." (In this regard, it would be helpful to remember it was President Clinton who signed the 1996 Effective Death Penalty Act, which effectively eliminated the right of habeus 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 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.

Ashcroft & Government 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, weaken public sector unions, and deprive the community of the protection of the present requirements for certification, oversight, inspections, etc.

Besides being a darling of the far right (he was their first choice for president), Ashcroft is very popular among the wealthy. According to a recent report by the watchdog Center for Responsible Politics, 95.9% of Ashcroft's campaign contributions come from corporate sources, with another 4% from "ideological/single issue" funders, such as the Eagle Forum and the National Rifle Association. Some of his biggest contributors are oil and tobacco companies and military contractors. This past December, Ashcroft became the first U.S. senator to lose a re-election bid to a dead man, after Democratic opponent Gov. Mel Carnahan died in a plane crash during the campaign.

Sources:

American Civil Liberties Union
Center for Responsible Politics
People for the American Way
Planned Parenthood Federation of America
Sen. John Ashcroft's political action committee
Southern Patriot
St. Louis Post-Dispatch