CNN - Lou Dobbs Tonight - Jay Sekulow Discusses Supreme Court Nominee President Bush Should Send to Senate

CNN - Lou Dobbs Tonight
July 12, 2005

HOST:  LOU DOBBS: President Bush today met with Senate leaders about the vacancy on the Supreme Court. The senators, including Majority Leader Bill Frist, Minority Leader Harry Reid, offered suggestions on who the president might nominate to replace Justice O'Connor.

The president didn't offer up any idea as to who he might be considering. My next guest, at the forefront of the battle already under way over the person who will succeed Sandra Day O'Connor, the president of the People For the American Way, Ralph Neas, says replacing O'Connor with a strict conservative would create what he calls, "A Constitutional catastrophe."

The chief counsel for the American Center for Law and Justice, Jay Sekulow, says liberal calls for a consensus nominee are nonsense and the president should be able to choose whichever candidate he wants. We hope he will be with us in just a moment.

Ralph, let me turn to you. You have been quoted saying that you've been working on this for the past five years, getting ready for this battle. Are you ready?

RALPH NEAS, PEOPLE FOR THE AMERICAN WAY: Lou, I've been working on this since my years with Senator Edward W. Brook, the Republican from Massachusetts, in the 1970s. We are ready. We do not want a fight. We hope these consultations are real, that the president wants to work with Republicans and Democrats and come up with a unity candidate, a consensus candidate.

As you know, we have called for someone in the mold of Sandra Day O'Connor: A mainstream conservative. She has been the fifth and decisive vote on dozens and dozens of key Constitutional issues.

DOBBS: Right.

Ralph, you also have said that you've raised five million dollars getting ready to defend the filibuster. Are you still ready for war?

NEAS: Lou, we did raise five million dollars and we spent five million dollars on the effort to save the filibuster and defeat the nuclear option, which of course, would have ended the filibuster and overturned about 218 years of Senate history.

But we are ready, but we don't want a fight. We hope there's going to be a consensus nominee, so we don't have to spend any money at all. And all those 20 or 30 millions of dollars that our friendly adversaries have raised won't have to be spent either.

DOBBS: Jay Sekulow, Ralph says you can save all that money, that everything is going to be fine. Just put together a mainstream moderate conservative.

JAY SEKULOW, AMERICAN CENTER FOR LAW AND JUSTICE: Consensus candidate.

Yes. Consensus candidate. Now, first of all, this is a nomination of the Supreme Court of the United States. This isn't a candidate for office in that regard and they've turned this into a political campaign.

You had Senator Reid today say that he wants this consensus candidate. The president is the one who gets to make the nomination under the Constitution. The Senate is not a co-nominator here. So this idea that Ralph's been articulating over the last couple of weeks, I think is just Constitutionally wrong.

But let me say something else, Lou, here: This process, despite Ralph saying they want it to work smoothly, they have politicized it. It was reported today that Senator Reid is hiring former Senator Mitchell, who of course, is the co-chairman of the Disney Corporation, which owns "ABC News," among other things, to run the campaign.

What campaign? The president is putting forward a nominee. The Senate should have hearings and vote up or down. They're the ones turning this into a political campaign.

DOBBS: Well, what do you think, Ralph, is it time for you to back off and -- because your friend, the very shy and retiring conservative, Jay Sekulow, says it's really not necessary.

NEAS: My good friend Jay knows that the White House just hired, or has Ed Gillespie and Fred Thompson working for them.

SEKULOW: Yes, but they're the ones making the nomination. Of course they hired somebody. That's normal. You've done that. You've been on that side of it. You know that.

NEAS: I think...

DOBBS: Can I ask you both something, because you both are sitting there, along with your colleagues on the various elements of the political spectrum, exciting the abortion base left and right, exciting the affirmative action base left and right. Are you -- both of you going to make these litmus test issues at least tacitly from the standpoint of your campaigns?

SEKULOW: I don't think it should be a litmus test. I think it should be: The president is going to do exactly what he said. He said he's going to appoint justices, as he has for the Court of Appeals; that are going to not going to legislate from the bench; that are going to interpret the Constitution; that are in -- conservative in their judicial philosophy. He has the right to do that as president.

NEAS: Jay, please calm down. The president does have a Constitutional...

SEKULOW: Well, I'm glad you've run out of your five million dollars so I can be a lot calmer.

NEAS: Jay, the Constitutional right is the president's to nominate someone.

SEKULOW: Right.

NEAS: Of course, the Senate as a co-equal Constitutional responsibility, can reject that nominee.

SEKULOW: Sure.

NEAS: Especially if the president takes judicial philosophy into account; especially if he does what he says, that you and I and he all agree on -- he has promised, your boss, Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell and James Dobson, that he will appoint someone in the mold of Thomas and Scalia. We did a study according...

SEKULOW: Justice Scalia, who was confirmed 98-0.

NEAS: Please, James, don't interrupt.

SEKULOW: ... 98-0.

(CROSS TALK)

DOBBS: Let me ask you both one -- because we're just about out of time here, and with these developments today, the admission by Karl Rove's attorney and the reports that he indeed did talk with Matt Cooper, the "Time" magazine reporter; was at least the source on that element of the story. What's your reaction, to those developments, in the White House effectively taking on a stonewall position?

Let me start with you, Jay.

SEKULOW: I think that number one: There's been no allegation so far, that's proven anything, that Karl Rove did anything illegal or unethical.

DOBBS: No, no. I didn't suggest...

SEKULOW: And you've got -- I know you haven't. But there are a lot of people that have said that and it's just not true. And secondly: you've got a criminal investigation going on. Let them do their job. The idea that Senator Kerry is calling for the resignation of Karl Rove before the first bit of evidence has been introduced, I think is ridiculous.

DOBBS: After two years, Jay, do you think this investigation -- what do you think, the White House should just come clean, tell everybody what they know?

SEKULOW: Well, I think they're cooperating. There's no indication that the White House isn't doing anything other than cooperating and I suspect -- I know they are and that's what they're going to do.

DOBBS: Ralph, you get the last 20 seconds.

NEAS: I have no idea whether there's anything illegal by Karl Rove. But if he had anything to leaking to the press anything about a covert CIA operative, he should resign or he should be fired by the president of the United States. And the White House would tell everything and be candid with the American people. The public has a right to know.

DOBBS: Ralph Neas, Jay Sekulow, thanks you both for being here.

SEKULOW: Thanks, Lou.

NEAS: Thank you.

DOBBS: Come back soon.

SEKULOW: Good to see you.