Battle on Capitol Hill over judicial nomination of William Pryor Jr.

CNBC News Transcripts July 30, 2003 Wednesday

SHOW: Capital Report (9:00 PM ET) - CNBC

July 30, 2003 Wednesday

HEADLINE: Battle on Capitol Hill over judicial nomination of William Pryor Jr.

ANCHORS: ALAN MURRAY; GLORIA BORGER

Senator RICHARD DURBIN (Democrat, Illinois; Judiciary Committee): It's probably a new low in American politics, so bad that even a Republican senator, a member of the committee from Georgia, said that he thought it was a shameful display. To think that Mr. Gray is taking money and putting on ads and suggesting that those who oppose William Pryor are doing so because he's Catholic—I personally resent it. I've listened to Mr. Gray, even last night on a television show, making pronouncements about Catholic theology and what Catholics believe, and that, I really think, goes over the top. Mr. Gray, as I understand it, is not a Catholic. For him to be speaking about Catholic beliefs with some sort of authority is particularly galling.

Let's get down to the bottom line. William Pryor has a diverse background and one that includes some very extreme positions. And this committee has approved for President Bush, time and time again, Catholic nominees. Boyden Gray realizes that William Pryor's in trouble, and that's why he's raised this red herring.

Sen. DURBIN: I don't know of a single member of the Senate Judiciary Committee who has expressed any concern, any concern whatsoever, about William Pryor's religious beliefs. In fact, it was Senator Orrin Hatch, the chairman, who asked him his religion. No one to that point had even raised the issue of his religion.

Mr. GRAY: Can I respond?

Sen. DURBIN: Time and again—no, let me finish, please.

Mr. GRAY: All right.

Sen. DURBIN: Time and again, Catholic nominees, whom we identify simply by the organizations belong to, because none of us believe that you should ask a nominee his religion, until Senator Hatch did. Catholic nominees have been approved by this committee. Now if Mr. Gray, an Episcopalian, is now suggesting they're not good Catholics, it really again suggests that he is involving himself in areas where he has no expertise.

I will stand by the following: William Pryor has extreme political views. Regardless of his religion, those political views are fair game, and really should be asked of every single nominee as they should be asked of him.

Mr. GRAY: Can I respond?

BORGER: Sure.

MURRAY: Sure.

Mr. GRAY: Senator Hatch raised the question of—went through Pryor's Catholicism in response to a lot of questions from Senator Durbin, who said, 'Do you not understand that in this country, where not all people are Catholics'—or 'not all people are Christians...'

Sen. DURBIN: No, no, no. I never said that, Mr. Gray.

Mr. GRAY: Will you let me finish, please, Senator?

Sen. DURBIN: Please quote me accurately.

Mr. GRAY: Well, I'm trying to quote—I'll get the thing out and read it to you. 'Do you understand that you are asserting a religious belief inconsistent with the separation of church and state?'

Sen. DURBIN: Let me explain what that statement was.

Mr. GRAY: Well, I—that's what he said.

Sen. DURBIN: Mr. Pryor had said...

Mr. GRAY: And you got...

Sen. DURBIN: Excuse me. Mr. Pryor had said, 'We live in a Christian nation,' and I suggested to him that there are many religions represented in this nation, not just those who are Christian, including myself. And I asked him if he thought this was inconsistent with the traditional separation between church and state. I think that's a legitimate question that doesn't attack his religious belief; it attacks the context of religion in a secular society.

Mr. GRAY: But you...

Sen. DURBIN: That's a legitimate question of any nominee for the federal bench.

Mr. GRAY: I'm not saying it's not a legitimate question; you asked it. But you asked the question about his religious belief and...

Sen. DURBIN: No, I did not.

Mr. GRAY: ...and asserted and said and questioned whether he understood that this was inconsistent with the separation of church and state.

Sen. DURBIN: Well, I stand by that. I'd ask that question of any nominee.

Mr. GRAY: All right. Then it was in response to that, and your later comment about the establishment of religion, that he was raising, you thought, by his testimony. You're the one who characterized his testimony as raising Establishment Clause questions, and it was in response to that...

MURRAY: But wouldn't we be—Mr. Gray, wouldn't we better off to get religion out of this?

Mr. GRAY: Well, sure. But...

Sen. DURBIN: Well, let me tell you...

Mr. GRAY: ...the Republicans didn't put it.

Sen. DURBIN: Oh...

Mr. GRAY: And let me just say about these ads—I'll take full responsibility for the ads. They ran in two small states. But...

MURRAY: Why those two? Wait. Why did you put them in those two states?

Mr. GRAY: We—well, because they're highly—their large Catholic populations.

BORGER: Maine and Rhode Island were the two states.

Sen. DURBIN: Oh, very interesting.

Mr. GRAY: And—but we didn't bring the mockup for this ad into the committee room.

BORGER: Well...

Mr. GRAY: The Democrats gave this ad far more national currency than we ever could have afforded.

Sen. DURBIN: Oh, please. Please.

BORGER: Let me ask you this. Is this—you know, some people charge that this is about the Republican Party courting the Catholic vote.

Mr. GRAY: Those two states, Maine and Rhode Island, I think will never be carried by Republicans in my lifetime in a presidential election. I don't know what the...

Sen. DURBIN: Oh, listen...

BORGER: But you just said that there was a large Catholic population in those states.

Mr. GRAY: Well, yes, because there are Judiciary Committee senators in those states.

BORGER: Right.

Mr. GRAY: But we didn't inject this into the committee. We—you know, I was as surprised as anybody about the storm this has created.

BORGER: OK.

Sen. DURBIN: Oh, please. Mr. Gray's ads are a shameful pandering. They shouldn't have been used in any state in the nation. He knew what he was doing. He was spending money raised in Republican circles to try to create a division in America which does not exist.

Mr. GRAY: We could never raise enough money to get the national publicity this thing has gotten because of the Democrats.

BORGER: OK, gentlemen, we're going to have to end it there and we're going to have to see what happens in the Senate tomorrow. Thank you, Senator Durbin and former President Bush senior White House counsel C. Boyden Gray. Thank you for being here.

Sen. DURBIN: Thank you.

MURRAY: Thank you both.