WASHINGTON — President Bush bypassed the Senate on a high-profile judicial nomination Friday for the second time in five weeks and seated William Pryor, the Alabama attorney general and an outspoken opponent of abortion, as an appeals court judge through 2005.
Pryor is among six of Bush’s appeals court nominees who have been blocked from receiving confirmation votes by delaying tactics of Senate Democrats who contended the nominees were extreme conservatives.
He took the oath of office in Alabama Friday night and joined the Atlanta-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit, which covers Alabama, Georgia and Florida.
Pryor, 41, has described Roe vs. Wade, the Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion, as "the worst abomination in the history of constitutional law." In 1997, his first year as Alabama attorney general, Pryor invoked God’s will while speaking at a Christian Coalition rally in defense of a state judge’s prerogative to post the Ten Commandments in his courtroom.
Senate Democrats seized on such comments to portray Pryor as being out of the mainstream, but that same history has made him a luminary of the religious right. Bush, in an e-mail announcing the election-year appointment, said Pryor’s "impressive record demonstrates his devotion to the rule of law and to treating all people equally under the law," and said he "has received widespread bipartisan support from those who know him and know his record."
Bush’s use of his recess appointment power, which allows a president to install a nominee when Congress is not in session, was hailed by conservatives at a time when the right wing of his party has complained to the White House about issues ranging from record federal spending to a delay in a presidential endorsement of a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage.
Strategists in both parties said they took the announcement as a sign that Bush is still working to fire up his base voters for the election.
Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., said in a written statement that Bush "is on shaky ground with the hard right and is using this questionably legal and politically shabby technique to bolster himself."
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