Bush bypasses Senate to name circuit judge

WASHINGTON -- President Bush on Friday named Alabama Attorney General William Pryor to the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta, bypassing Senate Democrats who were blocking his nomination because of his criticism of the landmark Supreme Court case that legalized abortion.

For the second time in six weeks, Bush invoked his constitutional right to circumvent congressional approval of judicial nominees while Congress isn't in session, to appoint a controversial choice to a temporary seat on the federal bench. Congress was in recess this week in honor of Presidents Day.

Last month Bush used his "recess appointment" power to place Mississippi Judge Charles Pickering on the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans. Democrats and civil rights organizations opposed Pickering mainly for his role in a cross-burning case in which he went out of his way to lower a defendant's sentence. Pickering found the first-time offender's recommended sentence of seven years too harsh and sentenced him to 27 months.

Pryor's appointment came as Bush is under fire from religious evangelicals and conservatives on a number of fronts, from soaring federal spending to his proposal for semi-amnesty for illegal immigrants to White House inaction on the issue of marriage for lesbians and gays.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, said, "I think that Attorney General Bill Pryor will make a great judge. While my first preference is never a recess appointment, Bill Pryor's nomination has been unfairly stalled for almost a year without an up or down vote by the full Senate."

Some conservatives viewed the Pryor appointment as an administration effort to appease them.

"It may well be," said Paul Weyrich, the chairman of the Free Congress Foundation, a politically and culturally conservative organization. "If it is a bone, fine, I'll chew on it. We've been encouraging the president that if any of the (blocked nominees) want recess appointments, please do it."

Pryor, whose term on the Atlanta-based court will expire at the end of 2005, has called the Roe v. Wade decision upholding the right to abortion as "the worst abomination of constitutional law in our history."

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