Ajcongress is Second Jewish Group to Oppose Supreme Court Nominee

The American Jewish Congress on Tuesday became the second Jewish group to urge the U.S. Senate to reject the nomination of Judge David Souter to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court.

In a hand-delivered letter, AJCongress urged Sen. Joseph Biden (D-Del.), chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, to recall the U.S. Appeals Court judge for additional questioning by the panel about his views on “privacy and reproductive rights,” or abortion.

“If adequate responses are not forthcoming, or further hearings are not held,” the letter said, AJCongress “officially expresses its opposition to the conformation of Judge Souter and urges the Senate of the United States to vote against him.”

A Senate Judiciary Committee source said Tuesday there are no plans to recall Souter before its scheduled Thursday morning vote on whether to send the nomination to the Senate floor for a vote.

So far only one senator has announced an intention to oppose Souter, Sen. Alan Cranston (D-Calif.), but Cranston is not a member of the committee.

The AJCongress decision to oppose the nomination was made Monday night at a meeting of its executive committee. The vote, which was unanimous, was a last-minute addition to the meeting’s agenda, said Mark Pelavin, the group’s Washington representative.

The National Council of Jewish Women last week joined other major abortion rights groups in opposing Souter at the committee hearing. Since then, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights have also voiced their opposition to Souter.

OTHER GROUPS NOT TAKING STAND

But other Jewish groups, including the Union of American Hebrew Congregations, which is a member of the Leadership Conference, have reaffirmed their intention of staying out of the confirmation process.

Albert Vorspan, the UAHC’s director of social action, said Tuesday he was “very surprised” by the AJCongress stance. “We’re not going to take a stand, because we think this is not a Bork situation,” he said, referring to the Senate’s 1987 rejection of Judge Robert Bork to the Supreme Court.

The UAHC will only oppose a Supreme Court nominee who demonstrates a “real flagrancy in the record, and solid evidence,” Vorspan said. “This is still too ‘iffy’ for us.”

Bork outraged civil rights and women’s groups with his strong view that the court should adhere to the intent of the founding fathers and not create rights not expressly established by the Constitution, such as the right to privacy.

By contrast, Souter told the Senate Judiciary Committee he believes there is a fundamental constitutional right to privacy that includes marital use of contraceptives.

But he refused to say whether he would extend that right to unmarried couples or to the issue of abortion.

Souter’s testimony “suggests someone who is evasive and, therefore, perhaps hostile to a fundamental concern” of AJCongress, said Pelavin.

He conceded that Souter has a “very different record than Bork” but said the question is whether he would have “the same effect” as Bork. “The stakes are just too high,” he said.

Three other major Jewish groups have no plans to oppose Souter.

“I’m very confident that we will not take a position on his nomination,” said Michael Lieberman, associate director and counsel of the Washington office of the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith.

PRAISE FROM AGUDATH ISRAEL

Judith Golub, legislative director of the American Jewish Committee, said her group debated the issue of opposing Supreme Court nominees and decided only to do so in “exceptional cases.”

And Agudath Israel of America had praise for the nominee. It applauded Souter last week for a New Hampshire Supreme Court decision he wrote supporting a doctor’s right to refuse to engage in medical practices to which he has religious objections.

In a letter to Biden, the group contrasted that decision with some of Souter’s actions as New Hampshire’s attorney general, where he defended state laws that infringed on religious liberties.

But those actions serve as “flimsy evidence, at best, of his personal views regarding freedom of religion,” wrote David Zwiebel, Agudath Israel’s general counsel and director of government affairs.