By Libby Quaid
Associated Press Writer
Friday, Jan. 19, 2001; 11:50 a.m. EST

WASHINGTON –– As contentious confirmation hearings wound down, Senate Republicans said Friday they have the votes to overcome a threatened Democratic filibuster against John Ashcroft's nomination to be attorney general.

"I think he will be confirmed comfortably," said GOP leader Trent Lott, adding he believes as many as 60 to 70 senators will vote for President-elect Bush's Cabinet choice.

Two Democrats have pledged publicly to vote for Ashcroft and none of the Senate's 50 Republicans has expressed opposition.

Critics of the conservative former senator have attacked his opposition to abortion and his views on race and questioned whether his beliefs could interfere with his ability to enforce the nation's laws.

Over three days of hearings, Ashcroft and his supporters said he knows the difference between his personal beliefs as an advocate and his responsibility as an enforcer.

On Friday, the Senate Judiciary Committee rehashed arguments over Ashcroft's civil rights record, from school desegregation to voter registration.

"In 1984 when he ran for governor, he described voluntary desegregation plans as an outrage against human decency; it sounds to me like his objections were more than fiscal," said Bill Taylor, a lawyer in the St. Louis desegregation case and now an activist working to defeat Ashcroft's nomination.

But Robert Woodson of the Washington-based National Center for Neighborhood Enterprise argued the black community has disagreed with forced busing plans.

"You need to listen to the full range of opinion in black America and not just the, quote, civil rights leaders," Woodson said. "I know this man. I have worked with this man. He is strong on civil rights. He is a just man."

Seventeen witnesses spoke Thursday about Ashcroft's character and his record on issues involving women's rights, civil rights, law enforcement and crime victims.

But Missouri Supreme Court Judge Ronnie White delivered key testimony against Ashcroft. White said Ashcroft, when he was a senator from Missouri, "seriously distorted" the jurist's record to block his federal judgeship for what Senate Democrats said were political reasons.

"The question for the Senate is whether these misrepresentations are consistent with the fair play and justice you all would require of the U.S. attorney general," White testified.

Ashcroft was seeking re-election in 1999 when he persuaded GOP colleagues to vote down White in the first full-Senate defeat of a district court nominee in 40 years. He called White "pro-criminal" and opposed to the death penalty.

Now White's case is a rallying cry for Democrats and civil rights groups opposed to Ashcroft's confirmation. White was Missouri's first black judge.

Some have accused Ashcroft of racism; other have said he merely is too insensitive to racial issues in American life.

White, interviewed Friday on the CBS program "The Early Show" said he doesn't think race was a factor in Ashcroft's opposition.

"It's really difficult for me to know what is in his heart, what's in his mind and what really, really motivates him. And I think that when you get into the name calling that ends the discussion and then positions harden and people won't listen to you anymore," he said.

Most Democrats echoed the charge by Kennedy, who told White that Ashcroft "tried to use your record on death penalty cases to help win his hotly contested Senate seat in Missouri against Governor (Mel) Carnahan."

During their campaign, Ashcroft had played up his objections to Carnahan's commutation of a death sentence at the request of the Pope. Ashcroft was defeated even though Carnahan died in a plane crash shortly before the election. Carnahan's widow, Jean, now holds the seat.

In an essay published Friday in The Washington Post, Sen. Evan Bayh, a moderate Democrat from Indiana, called Ashcroft "the wrong man" to serve as the nation's top law enforcer.

"Confirmation of this nominee will do nothing to end the politics of personal destruction, but rather will make it worse. As a senator, John Ashcroft was among the most ardent in opposing public service by others because of their ideology, lifestyle or prior political opposition," Bayh wrote.

To reward Ashcroft's conduct, he said, "will only encourage more of the same."

Although Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., raised the possibility of a filibuster, Democratic leaders signaled they would not attempt to defeat the nomination.

Sens. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., and Jon Corzine, D-N.J., have also said they will oppose the nomination, but two other Democratic senators, Robert Byrd of West Virginia and Georgia's Zell Miller, have committed to vote for the nominee.

White testified that as a judge, he had voted to uphold the death penalty in 41 of 59 cases. In 53 of the cases, White said, he voted with the majority of his colleagues on a court controlled by appointees of then-Gov. Ashcroft.

Republicans argued that Ashcroft had based his objections on legal disagreements with White, not politics or race.

GOP senators echoed Ashcroft's criticism of White's opinion backing a new trial for a quadruple murderer on death row. White had said the defense counsel was incompetent; Ashcroft said Wednesday the incompetence did not meet the legal standard for ordering a new trial.

Republicans summoned Rep. Kenny Hulshof, R-Mo., who had prosecuted the quadruple murder case. Hulshof brought along Sheriff Kenny Jones, whose wife was one of the victims. The ex-prosecutor graphically described how James Johnson had shot Jones' wife in front of her family, one sheriff's deputy in the back and two other lawmen from ambush.

Hulshof called Johnson's three lawyers "a dream team," who brought in three nationally known experts on the insanity defense they mounted.