In March 2002, Senate Democrats voted against Judge Charles Pickering's nomination to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals - a permanent, lifelong position. However, with the support of President Bush, who has resubmitted his nomination, Judge Pickering is in the process of assuming the very same position that he was originally denied. Pickering has sworn under oath, denying his pro-segregation past, but the records do not lie. Let us examine a few pieces of Pickering's political history.
First of all, Pickering helped lead the movement for the implementation of miscegenation laws in Mississippi. He promoted the creation of a law outlawing interracial marriage. He once wrote that the one-person, one-vote law was "obtrusive." He voted against state funding for family planning. He was associated with a state-funded agency called the Mississippi Sovereignty Commission, which was founded after Brown v. Board of Education to oppose racial integration. When Pickering served as a Mississippi state senator, he voted against any proposed measures that would expand black electoral opportunities after the passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965. While in the Senate, he also chaired a committee whose platform included total opposition to abortion, even in rape cases, incest cases or cases involving the protection of a pregnant woman's health. During a hearing in February, the Senate Judiciary Committee learned that in 1994, Judge Pickering went to great lengths, including unethical methods of persuasion, in order to deliver a more lenient sentence for a defendant convicted of burning a cross in the backyard of an African-American resident.
You would think that after Sen. Trent Lott, R-Mississippi, made comments last year in praise of Strom Thurman's past pro-segregation political platform, which eventually forced Sen. Lott to resign from his position as Senate majority leader, President Bush would have learned to distance himself from people with such a troubled past. But conservative supporters of Pickering's nomination, such as the president, are doing their best to downplay the facts. They claim that Pickering is not a racist and that he, in fact, was a leader in promoting the improvement of race relations in his state. They have even managed to find a few African-Americans to testify before the committee in defense of Pickering. As proof of Pickering's alleged commitment to racial justice, many point to one case in 1967 in which he provided testimony against a Klu Klux Klan member. But Chet Dillard, a Pickering supporter, writes in his book, "Clear Burning," that actions on part of the white community in Mississippi during the late sixties against the KKK were a response to racial violence getting out of control to the point where it was affecting local business. Thus, it can be argued that Pickering's testimony was an act to protect fiscal interests, not one to create racial harmony.
Also, every single NAACP chapter in the state of Mississippi, as well as the national NAACP organization, has voiced complete opposition. In addition to the NAACP, a broad coalition of public interest groups such as Planned Parenthood, Alliance for Justice, People for the American Way and other civil rights organizations like LULAC have condemned Pickering's nomination.
In regards to Pickering and other nominees who Democrats plan to filibuster against, a Wall Street Journal editorial read: "Far from being radical or extreme, their views are shared by tens of millions of Americans ... ."
Well, if tens of millions of Americans share the views of Charles Pickering, our country's race relations are in a state of absolute squalor. If only there was a place to where these millions of people could escape from such ideals like freedom, equality and justice and, instead, live in blissful ignorance, intolerance, bigotry and misogyny.
Fajardo is a government senior.
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