LAT: Activists Lack Allies in Battling Court Pick

[DeepModem Mom]

Activists Lack Allies in Battling Court Pick
By Janet Hook, Times Staff Writer


WASHINGTON — What happens when an army prepares for World War III — and ends up in a border skirmish?

That question looms for liberal groups that have been collecting millions of dollars and preparing for years for a scorched-earth battle over President Bush's first Supreme Court nominee.

But now that Bush has chosen John G. Roberts Jr., a respected jurist with bipartisan ties in Washington's legal establishment, Senate Democrats do not seem as eager to go to war....

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The challenge facing the interest groups grew larger Thursday when several moderate Democrats said they had not seen anything in Roberts' background to justify blocking him with a filibuster. The Democrats are part of the so-called Gang of 14, a bipartisan group that banded together this year to thwart a showdown over use of the filibuster against judicial nominees.

Some Senate Democrats say their low-key response to Roberts' nomination results in part from the relatively thin record of information about his judicial philosophy....But it also reflects a calculation that Democrats would have more to lose than to gain by quickly opposing a nomination that so far appears hard to beat. Such a move would probably fuel Republicans' efforts to portray Democrats as knee-jerk opponents of anything Bush wants....


http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-na-dems22jul22,0,7684969.story?coll=la-home-headlines