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JIM LEHRER: Now, how the Chavez and other Bush nominations look to
two key members of the Senate Judiciary Committee: Senator Patrick Leahy
of Vermont, the ranking Democrat, presently the chairman, and Republican
Senator Jon Kyl of Arizona.
Senator Kyl, does the illegal immigrant situation of Linda Chavez give
you a problem?
SEN. JON KYL: Clearly there will be questions that have to be asked,
and the best source of information about the facts will be Linda Chavez
herself. If she did not employ this woman but rather helped her out,
as by the way she had done on prior occasions with other people who
needed help, a helping hand, immigrants to this country, then there
won't be any problem. But if, for some reason, the evidence demonstrates
that she in fact hired the individual and then did not pay the Social
Security taxes, that would present the same issue as has been in other
cases. But, of course, she denies that.
JIM LEHRER: So the issue for you is not that she's an illegal immigrant,
the issue is whether or not she was hired and was a paid employee.
SEN. JON KYL: No. There are two issues that have been raised. One is
the status with respect to employment. I think it's pretty clear that
she did not employ this woman based upon what both the woman and Linda
Chavez have said. The other question with respect to helping her out
in her home, there is a statute that talks about harboring an illegal
alien. That would depend upon when she found out that the woman was
not legal. I read in a newspaper account that Linda Chavez did not know
that until the woman called her from Guatemala when she wanted to return
to the United States after she had been gone for a while. She will be
the best evidence of the facts for that.
JIM LEHRER: Senator Leahy, how do you read it right now?
SEN. PATRICK LEAHY: I suspect it will be a problem. I think, as Jon
has suggested, there are issues that have come up. But I think we also
ought to listen to the hearing and allow everybody to speak out on that.
Obviously one of the things that's probably going to be troubling to
miss Chavez is having her own words come back. She held Zoe Baird and
others who were Democratic nominees to a very, very high standard. The
question is, can she meet that standard herself? If it was an illegal
immigrant and she knew that, she didn't meet the standard. If this was
payment for work and taxes were not paid on it, she did not meet the
standard. If those things occur, then she will not be the Secretary
of Labor.
JIM LEHRER: If you... If this illegal immigrant thing or whatever the
situation turns out to be had not arisen, would you have supported her
for Secretary of Labor or did you already have problems with her?
SEN. PATRICK LEAHY: I really haven't looked at that. I'm not on that
committee. I've been spending a great deal of time with the Senator
Ashcroft's nomination. I was about to start this week looking at some
of the other nominees. Everybody from Colin Powell through to miss Chavez.
I've got a stack of briefing books about this high to go through all
of them.
JIM LEHRER: You had no opinion on her before?
SEN. PATRICK LEAHY: No but this, of course, is troublesome. I've had
a number of Republican Senators and Democratic Senators say it is troublesome.
But I agree with Jon: Let it come to the committee and explain exactly
what happened.
JIM LEHRER: When is that going to happen? You're the chairman now....
SEN. PATRICK LEAHY: For Judiciary on the Ashcroft.
JIM LEHRER: For this one.
SEN. PATRICK LEAHY: Most of these hearings I think will begin sometime
next week. President-elect Bush has said that he would like as many
of his cabinet members in place as he possibly can. We've been told
in that case let's get the hearings going. Most of us are going to be
back here in Washington in time to do the hearings next week. We'll
start the Ashcroft hearing next week. I think General Powell's hearing
and a number of other hearings with scheduled for next week.
JIM LEHRER: I want to get in the Ashcroft nomination in just a moment.
Just a final question on this Senator Kyl: Do you believe it's legitimate
to raise these questions about Linda Chavez, or do you think this is
off the charts and out of line for the Democrats to do this?
SEN. JON KYL: I think the questions are perfectly proper. The only thing
that is out of bound are some of the insinuations. I found that to be
the case for the Ashcroft nomination, if I could just move to that for
a second.
JIM LEHRER: Sure.
SEN. JON KYL: Absolutely no reason for anyone who knows john Ashcroft,
knows him to be a man of significant integrity to doubt his word when
he tells you something and yet I've noted some people create an insinuation
about whether he could really... whether he would enforce the law of
the land because, in some cases, he holds a different view than they
do on something. And clearly all of us in public service sometimes have
had to work with laws that weren't exactly our favorite, that we might
have opposed at one time or another, but when we raise our right hand
and put our hand on the Bible and say we will enforce the laws and the
Constitution, we mean it. John Ashcroft's case, he is a man of his word.
So it's perfectly appropriate to raise these questions about Linda Chavez
and questions about John Ashcroft so long as there isn't an insinuation
behind the question that, of course, we know that he couldn't possibly
enforce the law.
JIM LEHRER: Senator Leahy, do you believe John Ashcroft when he says
he will enforce abortion laws, he will enforce gun laws, laws that he's
been opposed to all along?
SEN. PATRICK LEAHY: He spoke out very much against these laws. I think
he should have a chance to say what he will do. If he says he will enforce
the law, I would assume he will enforce the law. But let's understand
what we're talking about here. It's not a question of whether Senators
like John Ashcroft or not. I haven't run into any Senator who says he
doesn't like Senator Ashcroft but this is not a case where we tell the
American people because the Senate is some kind of a club automatically
somebody from the Senate gets a pass and goes on to whatever they're
appointed to. The fact of the matter is the Attorney General is such
a unique position, this enforces laws for all of us, whether you're
liberal, conservative, poor, rich, white, black, rural, urban, no matter
what, the laws affect you. As a former prosecutor, I know a prosecutor
can say I'm going to enforce all the laws and they usually do. But I'll
emphasize this one. I won't emphasize this. What happens on civil rights
law? Will they be emphasized strongly? What about those things, hate-
crime laws, will they be strongly emphasized? What is the position of
the incoming administration-- everything from anti-trust to drug laws?
These are legitimate questions.
JIM LEHRER: You're going to ask them at the hearing for Ashcroft.
SEN. PATRICK LEAHY: I suspect everybody will be asking these questions.
The question will be how much will you emphasize? What will you put
the emphasis on? If, for example, there is a... An appeal that goes
to the Supreme Court that goes to the question of Roe versus Wade asking
the Supreme Court to overturn or reverse their decisions of Roe versus
Wade. As southern general, what do you tell your solicitor general to
do?
JIM LEHRER: Well, if you favor... If a Senator favors Roe v. Wade and
John Ashcroft says no I would not press that as strongly because he
has other things to do, would that be reason enough to vote against
him?
SEN. PATRICK LEAHY: I think that would go into the mix. I think you
have to ask... In the same way Miss Chavez would be asked questions
how do you feel about minimum wage? How do you feel about our labor
laws? How do you feel about fair employment and issues like that.
JIM LEHRER: Senator Kyl, is that how it should work?
SEN. JON KYL: Yes, in a sense it is. Obviously George W. Bush has been
elected President of the United States. One would assume that his Department
of Justice will reflect his priorities within the bounds of the laws
that we've all placed on the books. For example, he may have a little
different view of whether the antitrust laws should be enforced the
way same way that the previous administration has. Certainly it would
be appropriate for Pat Leahy or me as members of the Judiciary Committee
to ask about that. For Democrats who don't agree with George W. Bush
on some of these things and would not agree with John Ashcroft, perhaps,
it's an opportunity for them to make the point that they really hope
he'll enforce this law or give that priority to a particular issue.
We do that. That is routine. It's a good way of making the point to
him that you want him to consider your point of view. But at the end
of the day with respect to these matters of priority and emphasis that
Pat Leahy was talking about, it is important to remember that President
Bush got elected. While we don't ever confirm anyone just because they're
a friend of ours or they've been in the Senate, there is some degree
of deference provided to a new President for his cabinet appointments.
This will be a real test of the leadership of the Democratic Party to
get started off on a good bipartisan foot here and give the new President
the benefit of the doubt on his cabinet nominees.
JIM LEHRER: So if Pat Leahy disagrees philosophically with something
that John Ashcroft says he will do that is in sync with what George
W. Bush would do, that is not a legitimate reason for Pat Leahy to vote
against his nomination?
SEN. JON KYL: I'll let Pat describe it. But ordinarily that isn't the
test that we apply. We apply the test of qualifications, of experience,
of integrity, those things which suggest to us that even though he may
not agree with us totally that he will be a good steward of the public
trust.
SEN. PATRICK LEAHY: The thing is any of us in public life they have
a lot of things we've said over the past as your clip of Miss Chavez
showed when she talked about hiring illegal aliens, but the... Senator
Ashcroft has a pretty strong test. I mean, he has made it very clear
to a lot of people that he would not vote for otherwise qualified, actually
people that got then confirmed by the Senate because of disagreeing
with his philosophy.
JIM LEHRER: You're talking about federal judge nominees?
SEN. PATRICK LEAHY: Yeah, federal judges and others. I think that --
so the question was whether Senator Ashcroft would be held to the same
standard on some that have been held to others. I do feel though-- and
I should state this at the outset-- that the President, while he's not
a member of my party, I assume he'll have different philosophies. He
will be given some leeway on that. I suspect the Democrats will vote
for most of his... by unanimous votes for most of his nominees even
though they're not the people that we would have expected a Democratic
President to put in office.
JIM LEHRER: As we sit here tonight is the Ashcroft nomination in trouble?
SEN. PATRICK LEAHY: I think the Ashcroft nomination raises very serious
questions because the Attorney General, far more than any other cabinet
position, affects every one of us. It affects us in our lives and also
therefore it will be asked probably the most difficult questions.
JIM LEHRER: Senator Kyl, is the Ashcroft nomination in trouble?
SEN. JON KYL: No it's not in trouble. There will be questions, as Pat
said, but he will be confirmed I believe rather handily. There may be
a dozen or two votes against him on the Democratic side but I believe
that he will be overwhelmingly confirmed. It's interesting. I can't
think of another nominee for Attorney General, at least this last century
and perhaps before, that had the kind of experience and qualifications
that this man does: Eight years as Attorney General, eight years as
Governor with executive experience, six years in the United States Senate,
a prestigious law degree from the University of Chicago and Yale undergraduate,
certainly a man of great distinction and integrity.
JIM LEHRER: As they say in journalism, we'll see what happens. Thank
you both.
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