WASHINGTON -- Sen. Lincoln D. Chafee was the only Republican to vote
today against the confirmation of Priscilla Owen as a federal appellate
judge, as a four-year partisan battle over judicial nominations ended.
The Rhode Island Republican had been one of the 14 senators who signed a
bipartisan deal to prevent the effort to ban judicial filibusters.
He expressed hope yesterday that President Bush will henceforth make
judicial nominations that can win enough bipartisan support to preclude
filibuster threats.
Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., also voted no, saying Owen disregards
established legal precedents and, "I am concerned she will bend the law
to fit her views."
Owen's nomination was confirmed on a 56-43 vote, with two Democrats,
Sen. Robert Byrd, W.Va., and Sen. Mary Landrieu, La., crossing party
lines to support her.
Democrats had used their filibuster powers four times in the past to
prevent a vote on Owen, who they said was too conservative for the
lifetime position.
Yesterday, following the filibuster agreement, the Senate overwhelmingly
voted to end the stalemate and bring the nomination to a vote.
Chafee said in an interview today that he opposed Owen in part because
of an opinion she wrote in a Texas case involving a law that allows a
minor girl to get an abortion -- after judicial review -- without her
parents being notified. Chafee said his objection was not so much to how
Owen voted in the case but rather to her written rationale for the vote,
which referred to moral and religious arguments.
Chafee said he believes that opinion carried Owen "beyond the letter of
the law.'' He said some of Owen's conservative colleagues on the Texas
court agreed with him on that point.
This was only the second vote that Chafee has cast against one of
President Bush's nominees to the federal bench. He has voted to confirm
some nominees deemed by abortion rights lobbyists to be opponents of a
woman's right to seek an abortion.
Chafee said that while his personal support for abortion rights put his
views at odds with the views of those judges, their opinions did not go
as far as Owen's did. He said, specifically, that his difference with
Owen lay in the details of the workings of how the Texas law in one case
would permit a court to override the objection of a parent to a
daughter's abortion.
Chafee said yesterday he was undecided on all of Mr. Bush's pending
judicial nominees.
Chafee also said that he still intends to vote with his party to confirm
John Bolton's nomination to be ambassador to the United Nations.
-- With reports from The Associated Press
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