By Sid Salter, syndicated columnist
Opposition to President Bush’s nomination of former Mississippi Court of Appeals Judge Leslie Southwick to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has drawn basically the same opponents as did the failed nominations of Judge Charles Pickering and Jackson attorney Mike Wallace.
The national opposing groups are now becoming familiar to Mississippians: People For the American Way (fundamentally a liberal group whose stated enemy is “the right wing” and particularly the religious right); Alliance for Justice (pro-labor and pro-choice); and philosophical cousin The National Association for the Repeal of Abortion Laws.
The common denominating issue in the opposition that’s been generated to Pickering, Wallace and now Southwick by these groups? Abortion. Why?
It’s about abortion
The opponents said their opposition was about concerns that the three Mississippi nominees were racist. As we know, racism is a particularly deadly accusation to make against any Mississippian given our history.
But that was a political smokescreen. The opposition by these national activists is all about abortion.
There are 17 seats on the 5th Circuit, two of which are now vacant. Of the 15 occupied seats, 11 are held by Republican appointees of either President Ronald Reagan or the two Presidents Bush.
In other words, the 5th Circuit is a conservative court. The pro-choice groups don’t want any other conservative judge confirmed to the 5th Circuit.
There’s a second tier of opponents to Southwick’s nomination that has an actual issue upon which to base their opposition.
The predominantly-black Magnolia Bar Association and the Mississippi Chapter of the NAACP are also opposing Southwick’s nomination. Their complaint is that only one 5th Circuit judge is African-American despite a high African-American minority throughout the 5th Circuit and a 37 percent black minority in Mississippi.
Race, not racism
There is a highly legitimate argument to be made that black Mississippians have a right to want more black appellate judges in a position to render decisions in cases involving black plaintiffs and defendants.
That said, however, it is an exercise in hypocrisy for well-meaning groups like MBA and the NAACP to allow their names to be used in concert with these national pro-abortion groups to characterize Southwick as a racist when a fair review of his life and work clearly reveals that he’s no such thing.
Southwick is a moderate. An exhaustive review of his record has produced only one case in which his racial views are questioned and in that case, a state Supreme Court appeal saw a former black justice of that court concur on part of that appeal and dissent on another part.
The national groups conveniently left that fact out of their attacks on Southwick — just as they conveniently left out the fact that he just returned from serving his country on active duty in the military in Iraq in a combat zone.
Race on the 5th Circuit is a legitimate complaint. But accusations of racism against Southwick are — as was the case with Pickering and Wallace — baseless charges made only in the interest of inflaming Senate Democrats to oppose him.
Contact Perspective Editor Sid Salter at (601) 961-7084 or e-mail ssalter@clarionledger.com.
