Since Democrats changed U.S. Senate rules in November to remove the 60-vote threshold for cloture motions on most presidential nominees, senators have confirmed dozens of President Barack Obama’s appointees as federal judges, ambassadors, and to various executive branch positions. In fact, fifteen presidential nominees sailed through the process during the past month alone.
Yesterday, for the first time under new Senate rules, Democrats could not muster even a simple majority of votes in favor of cloture on a presidential nominee. Alexander Bolton and Ramsey Cox reported on the controversy that torpedoed Debo Adegbile’s nomintaion to be assistant attorney general in charge of the Justice Department’s civil rights division. Critics said Adegbile was unfit for the job because as director of litigation for the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, he had supported efforts commute the death sentence of Mumia Abu-Jamal, “who was convicted of killing Philadelphia police officer Daniel Faulkner in 1981.”
Seven Democrats joined all the Republicans present to defeat the cloture motion on Adegbile’s nomination by 52 votes to 47 (roll call). The Iowans split along party lines, with Senator Tom Harkin supporting cloture on Adegbile’s nomination and Senator Chuck Grassley voting against the motion. Harkin sharply criticized his colleagues, saying Adegbile would have been confirmed if he were white.
Bolton and Cox saw yesterday’s vote as “a stinging defeat for Obama.” I see it as a more stinging defeat to basic concepts underlying the American justice system: everyone has a right to a defense, and defense attorneys should not be held accountable for their clients’ conduct. Going back to the colonial period, this country has a tradition of attorneys providing a vigorous defense at trial to even odious criminals. President John Adams remained proud of his work defending the British soldiers responsible for the Boston Massacre of 1770 and opposing the death penalty for them, even though they had shot and killed patriots.
UPDATE: Added comments from Harkin after the jump.
Speaking to Radio Iowa, Senator Tom Harkin said yesterday’s vote on Adegbile was “one of the most shameful” votes in his Senate career.
No one questioned his abilities, no one questioned his qualifications,” Harkin says. “The only thing that was an issue was he had signed on to a brief when he was with the Legal Defense Fund for the NAACP, an appellate brief for a person who had been convicted of a very heinous crime, the murder of a policeman, 30 years ago.” […]
Harkin notes, he was in the Senate when President Clinton was impeached and last night’s vote ranks alongside the impeachment vote as “one of the lowest points.” Harkin, a Democrat, says this vote was completely out of line.
“Adegbile didn’t know this guy, he didn’t defend him or anything, he was just doing his job in a pro bono sense, actually, fulfilling his legal obligation in his profession to provide representation for those who the government has gone up against,” Harkin says. “That’s why we have pro bono lawyers do this kind of work.” […]
“The Fraternal Order of Police came out and opposed Adegbile because of this,” Harkin says. “Well, shame on them, too. Shame on them. I count myself as a pretty good supporter of the Fraternal Order of Police all the time I’ve been here, but shame on them.”