Ashcroft's Connections Questioned

By: Tom Brune

When he was a U.S. Senator from Missouri, U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft praised rebel leaders of the Civil War in the pro-Confederate Southern Partisan magazine, accepted a diploma from the racially discriminatory Bob Jones University, and met with a leader of the white-supremacist Council of Conservative Citizens.

Contact with those groups is a distinction Ashcroft shares with just a handful of national politicians, among them Sen. Trent Lott (R-MS), who on Friday resigned under fire as Senate majority leader for praising the 1948 segregationist presidential campaign of Sen. Strom Thurmond (R-SC).

While Lott and Ashcroft say the groups do not represent their views, liberal and conservative advocates say the groups do represent powerful symbols in the often passionate discussion of race and civil rights in America - as Lott discovered in the furor surrounding his implied endorsement of segregation as he sought to praise 100-year-old Thurmond.

As Lott steps down under pressure for his remarks, Ashcroft's record on race - and his connections to those groups - are once again being highlighted and questioned by liberal advocacy groups concerned about civil rights.

"The Republican Party's civil rights problem is far broader and deeper than Trent Lott", said Ralph Neas, president of People for the American Way, a liberal nonprofit advocacy group.

Neas called for a national debate on the Bush administration's civil rights and social policies and its determination to reshape the federal courts with conservative, states' rights nominees for judgeships, steps he fears will roll back past gains.

Central to that debate is Ashcroft, who as Attorney General not only helps select judicial nominees but also enforces the nation's federal civil rights laws.

Ashcroft has said little about Lott. In an appearance on CNN's Larry King Live show Tuesday, he said: "Well, Trent Lott has been my friend for a long time... I served with him and enjoyed my service with him." He declined to say more, referring instead to President George W. Bush's statement "that every day America lived under segregation was a day that we betrayed the principles of this country".

Since becoming Attorney General in 2001, Ashcroft has avoided raising controversial civil rights issues like affirmative action, and has rarely spoken about judicial nominees despite the partisan Senate war over them, often based on their records on race.

His spokeswoman, Barbara Comstock, said: "This administration has had a very strong record of civil rights enforcement and voting rights enforcement."

Neas and others have been critical of Ashcroft, and Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) has requested that the Government Accounting Office probe the reassignment of three career employment-discrimination attorneys in Justice's civil rights division, a move Comstock called "routine".

Ashcroft has always been as controversial as Lott, a favorite of the right and anathema to the left.

Bush made Ashcroft, a former Missouri Attorney General, Governor, and U.S. Senator, his first cabinet nominee, setting off a storm of protest by liberal activists.

They complained Ashcroft had led a protracted fight against a federal court's school desegregation order and had a voting record during his 1994-2000 Senate term that mirrored that of Lott and other conservatives.

Race and civil rights sparked some of the most severe criticism at his bruising Senate confirmation hearings for Attorney General in January 2001, leading to his approval by a narrow 58 to 42 vote.

But Ashcroft never backed down. Instead, he condemned racism, segregation, and slavery; said he had appointed minorities to judgeships and top positions in Missouri government; and pointed out he had signed a bill for a holiday honoring Martin Luther King Jr.

Linda Chavez, president of the conservative, nonprofit, Center for Equal Opportunity, said Ashcroft's votes and programs can be defended on principle. But Chavez, whose organization opposes racial preferences, said she does not understand why he won't distance himself from controversial groups.

In 1998, he gave an interview in 1998 to Southern Partisan magazine, saying he and others need to do more to "set the record straight" on the Confederacy.

"You've got a heritage of doing that, of defending Southern patriots like Lee, Jackson, Davis", Ashcroft said. "We've all got to stand up and speak in this respect, or else we will be taught that these people were giving their lives, ascribing their sacred fortunes, and their honor to some perverted agenda."

Despite pleas to renounce the publication during confirmation hearings, Ashcroft said he didn't know enough about the magazine to condemn it, despite its public celebration of Abraham Lincoln's assassin.

Ashcroft took a similar stance in the hearings to questions about his 1999 appearance at Bob Jones University, in Greenville, SC, whose founder made anti-Catholic statements and whose interracial dating ban cost it its tax-exempt status. Ashcroft pled ignorance despite a publicized fight over its tax status, led by Lott.

Ashcroft did condemn the white-supremacist Council of Concervative Citizens, which endorsed him for Senate. But he had met with a council official and written a letter on behalf of a council member accused in a conspiracy to kill an FBI agent. Ashcroft said he did not know about the man's tie to the group.

Asked Friday if Ashcroft has reconsidered his appearances at Bob Jones University and in Southern Partisan, Comstock depicted them as isolated incidents and referred to Ashcroft's remarks during his confirmation hearing two years ago.