President Bush yesterday nominated Claude A. Allen, a prominent Virginia conservative, to the Richmond-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit.
Allen is the No. 2 official at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and was Virginia's secretary of health and human resources when James S. Gilmore III (R) was governor. Allen, 42, is an advocate of home-schooling and abstinence education.
Virginia conservative Claude A. Allen is President Bush's nominee to the Richmond-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit.
(Bob Brown, The Richmond Times-Dispatch - AP)
|
|
Bush also nominated Allyson K. Duncan of North Carolina to the court. She was a senior lawyer at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, where she worked for Clarence Thomas, now a Supreme Court justice.
Senate confirmation of the nominees would add two African Americans to the court, where the racial composition has fueled a decade-long fight between the parties. Duncan, 51, would be the circuit's first African American woman.
White House counsel Alberto R. Gonzales wrote to senators that the nominations "dismantle an historic barrier."
The 4th Circuit is the nation's most conservative appeals court, and the nominees, each of whom would replace a deceased Democrat, would make it more so. The court serves a population that is about 22 percent minorities, the most of any circuit. The court hears terrorism cases, and two of its members often are mentioned as promising Supreme Court nominees for Bush.
The parties have fought bitterly over the makeup of the 4th Circuit, which consists of Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia and the Carolinas and sits in the capital of the old Confederacy. President Bill Clinton nominated four African Americans to the court, but Republicans blocked each one. Clinton used a congressional recess to temporarily appoint Roger L. Gregory of Richmond as the court's first black member. Bush re-nominated Gregory, who was confirmed in 2001.
North Carolina has not been represented on the court since 1999, and Senate aides said they hoped yesterday's nominations would break an impasse over other vacancies on the court. Sen. John Edwards (D-N.C.) said he supports Duncan, and other Democrats are likely to follow his lead since she is from his state.
Allen's nomination drew opposition. Appeals court seats traditionally are associated with particular states, and his confirmation would move a seat that has been held by Maryland, which has two Democratic senators, to Virginia, which has two Republicans.
"This is consistent with the administration's bold and bare-fisted approach to judicial nominations," a Republican legal source said.
The White House biography omits it, but Allen was campaign press secretary to then-Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.) in 1984 for his race against then-Gov. James B. Hunt Jr. (D).
A Senate Judiciary Committee aide said Democrats are scrutinizing Allen's statements about abortion and gays. During the 1984 campaign, Allen was criticized for his response to Hunt's description of Helms's backers as right-wingers. Allen said Hunt had links "with the queers."
Nevertheless, a Senate Democratic aide said indications are that Allen would be confirmed. "He's an African American on a court that needs one," the aide said.
The 4th Circuit has three vacancies. Democrats have blocked confirmation of Terrence W. Boyle of North Carolina, a former aide to Helms who originally was nominated to the appeals court by Bush's father in 1991.
Allen was on White House lists for possible Cabinet posts. For the past five years, he has been in policy jobs, as Virginia secretary of health and human resources and then as deputy to U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Tommy G. Thompson.
Duncan served on the North Carolina Court of Appeals and practices in Raleigh.
