On May 11th, Julian Bond, Chairman, NAACP National Board of Directors, said the Bush Administration's judicial nominees "are the most conservative of any recent president" and if they are confirmed by the U.S. Senate, "they will weaken and roll back civil rights laws, exposing minority Americans to unfair treatment without the prospect of remedy or relief."
Speaking at a Washington, D.C. press conference, Bond said: "On racial discrimination, the president's federal district judges score the lowest of any modern chief executive." Since more than 200 Bush judicial appointees were able to win Senate approval Bond said there is no reason for the Senate to change rules that allow senators to filibuster to block senate confirmation of certain judicial nominees. Bond was joined at the press conference by Judith Lichtman, Vice Chair, Leadership Conference on Civil Rights (LCCR), LCCR Executive Director Wade Henderson, Senators Edward Kennedy (D.Mass) and Patrick Leahy (D., VT) and Washington, D.C. Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton. Bond and nearly 20 civil rights leaders from the nation's leading civil rights organizations sent a letter to Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R., Tenn) and Minority Leader Harry Reid (D., Nevada) urging the senators to oppose the so-called "nuclear option".
"Why are the President and his supporters so afraid to take their chances now without changing the rules that resulted in seating the present judges?" Bond said. "The answer is that some of his current nominees are even more extreme than their predecessors, and promise to wreak even more damage on the fragile system of civil rights protections won at great cost and sacrifice. Under the present system, they cannot win. They'd rather pervert the process than lose."
Bond, a veteran civil rights leader, said: "Using race
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