NYPost

N.C. SENATOR VOWS TO SINK BUSH JUDICIAL PICK

By VINCENT MORRIS and BRIAN BLOMQUIST

May 10, 2001 -- WASHINGTON - President Bush reached out to Democrats yesterday with his first batch of judicial picks - but his hand was quickly slapped away by a Democratic senator who vowed to blackball one of them.

Sen. John Edwards (D-N.C.), considered a possible presidential candidate against Bush in 2004, said he plans to torpedo Bush's nomination of Terrence Boyle of North Carolina.

Other Democrats said they'd back up Edwards - who says he won't relent unless the president also elevates another judge he wants - in his bid to deny Boyle a seat on the federal appeals court.

They can do that by refusing to show up for a hearing on the Boyle nomination, which would prevent it from starting.

Bush held a White House ceremony to display his 11 nominees - and to urge Senate Democrats to "rise above the bitterness of the past."

Of the 11, three are women, two are black and one is Hispanic. Most are considered conservative.

Two nominees, Roger Gregory and Barrington Parker Jr., both black, were originally nominated to the courts by former President Clinton. Those nominations were seen as an olive branch by Bush to the Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee.

"I now submit these nominations in good faith, trusting the good faith will also be extended by the United States Senate," Bush said in the East Room ceremony.

Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont, the top Democrat on the panel, said at the ceremony: "I will work with the president."

But committee member Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) sounded a war cry.

"Democrats in the Senate will not be railroaded into rubber-stamping a group of ideological judges," Schumer said.

-- Anonymous, May 10, 2001