Wash. Senators Sound off about Gonzales Vote

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Wash. Senators sound off about Gonzales vote

Both of Washington State's senators are voicing their lack of confidence in Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, even though a no-confidence resolution in the Senate failed to make it to a full debate.

The vote was 53-38 in favor, seven votes shy of the necessary 60 to move the resolution forward.

Although the vote failed to go Democrats' way, Senator Maria Cantwell, D-Wash. said the message was clear.

"Attorney General Gonzales does not have the independence needed to serve as our country's top law enforcement official," said Cantwell. "There are simply too many unanswered questions on everything from warrantless wiretapping, to the treatment of detainees at Guantanamo Bay, to the firing of eight U.S. Attorneys. As a majority of the Senate has made clear, he should resign."

Senator Patty Murray, D-Wash. said she knew it would come to this.

"I voted against Mr. Gonzales' nomination two years ago because I believed the he lacked the independence and honesty to be Attorney General and because his record did not ensure public confidence in the fair administration of justice. Unfortunately, his tenure at Justice has confirmed these fears," said Murray.

In bringing the matter up, Democrats dared Republicans to vote their true feelings about an attorney general who has alienated even the White House's strongest defenders by bungling the firings of federal prosecutors and claiming not to recall the details.

Republicans did not defend him, but most voted against moving the resolution ahead.

Short of impeachment, Congress has no authority to oust a Cabinet member, but Democrats were trying anew to give him a push. Gonzales dismissed the rhetorical ruckus on Capitol Hill, and President Bush continued to stand by his longtime friend and legal adviser.

"They can have their votes of no confidence, but it's not going to make the determination about who serves in my government," Bush said in Sofia, Bulgaria, the last stop on a weeklong visit to Europe.

"This process has been drug out a long time," Bush added. "It's political."

The attorney general said he was paying no attention to the rhetoric on Capitol Hill.

"I am not focusing on what the Senate is doing," Gonzales said at a nuclear terrorism conference in Miami. "I am going to be focusing on what the American people expect of the attorney general of the United States and this great Department of Justice."

In addition to the controversy over fired prosecutors, lawmakers of both parties have long complained that Gonzales allowed Justice to violate civil liberties on a host of other issues -- such as by carrying out Bush's warrantless wiretapping program.

One veteran Republican said Gonzales had used up all his political capital in the Senate.

"There is no confidence in the attorney general on this side of the aisle," said Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, the senior Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee. Specter voted to move the resolution forward, but he said many of his GOP colleagues would not because they feared political retribution.

Democrats said it was only fair to put senators on record for or against Gonzales, particularly since five GOP senators have called for the attorney general's resignation and many more have said they have lost confidence in him.

"If senators cast their vote with their conscience, they would speak with near unanimity that there is no confidence in the attorney general," said the resolution's author, Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y. "Their united voice would undoubtedly dislodge the attorney general from the post that he should no longer hold."

Sen. Trent Lott, R-Miss., said it was inappropriate for the Senate to hold forth on a member of the president's Cabinet.

"This is a nonbinding, irrelevant resolution proving what? Nothing," Lott said. "Maybe we should be considering a vote of no confidence on the Senate or on the Congress for malfunction and an inability to produce anything."

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