Party-line vote on judge nominee divides Senate

WASHINGTON -- A Senate committee's party-line rejection of a Mississippi judge could endanger other nominees, lawmakers said Friday, with talk of retaliation from Republicans and Democrats.

GOP leader Trent Lott called the defeat of U.S. District Judge Charles Pickering of Mississippi for the U.S. Appeals Court "a real blow," and said he would block one of Majority Leader Tom Daschle's aides from getting on the Federal Communications Commission.

"I'm not going to let go of it for a long time," said Lott, a Pickering friend of 40 years who called the Senate Judiciary Committee's racially charged proceedings and its 10-9 vote Thursday a "slap at Mississippi."

Daschle, in turn, warned an attack on his aide's nomination might prove dangerous for Bush nominees in the Democrat-controlled Senate.

"I don't know if they've given careful thought to that threat, because I think it could easily backfire in many ways," the South Dakota Democrat said.

Pickering was the first Bush judicial nominee to lose in the Judiciary Committee.

Democrats criticized the 64-year-old judge's judicial temperament and judgment.

Lott and other Republicans meanwhile said Pickering had been smeared by groups seeking to impose "an ideological litmus test" involving abortion, civil rights and other issues.

Republicans say liberal groups also used the Mississippi judge to test their strength for the next Supreme Court nomination battle.

"I think it is really aimed at the Supreme Court," Lott said. "That is the message, you send up a pro-life conservative man of faith for the Supreme Court and we will take care of him or her. That's what it's really about."