Perspective: Ashcroft defending our rights is troubling

Former U.S. Sen. John Ashcroft, R-Mo., must believe the Constitution is a work in progress. Why else would he have supported no fewer than seven amendments during his six years in the Senate, including a measure to make the Constitution easier to amend?

While this eagerness to revise one of our nation's founding documents is troubling for a senator, it is even more disturbing for our attorney general designee. Assuming confirmation by his former colleagues, Ashcroft (insert shiver here) will soon be the man counted on to defend the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.

His nomination is a little like asking the big bad wolf to defend Grandma's house. The shell of the house may remain intact, but Grandma -- the precious soul inside -- is a goner.

As a senator, Ashcroft's right-wing philosophies were given form in his attempts to alter the Constitution. By supporting amendments to outlaw abortion and flag burning, and to add so-called victims' rights, Ashcroft indicated his view that privacy, free speech and due process for the accused are rights that need to be beaten back.

Upset that Congress wasn't letting proposed constitutional changes through, the former Missouri governor offered up a new amendment process. Under Ashcroft's plan, rather than requiring either a constitutional convention or a two-thirds vote of both houses of Congress, a constitutional amendment could originate in the states with the approval of two-thirds of state legislatures. Congress could only stop the amendment by voting it down by a two-thirds vote. Then the amendment would go to the states for final ratification. The change would shift the balance of power, giving states the ability to sharply limit federal authority.

None of the amendments he supported ultimately passed.

When Ashcroft wasn't using his legislative power to make the Constitution his personal pincushion, he was using his bully pulpit to rail against judges who failed to interpret the document to his liking.

In a 1997 speech before the Conservative Political Action Conference, Ashcroft lashed out against the federal judiciary for rulings that, in his view, undermined the will of the people. "People's lives and fortunes (have) been relinquished to renegade judges -- a robed, contemptuous intellectual elite," said Ashcroft.

One example he noted was a U.S. Supreme Court ruling protecting the right of women to obtain an abortion, of which he said, "(the court had) challenged God's ability to mark when life begins and ends."

Hmmm. Since the majority of Americans support abortion rights, is his complaint really that the courts have usurped the power of the people or is it that they have ruled counter to his own religious beliefs?

While in the Senate, Ashcroft's power to affect the rights of Americans was limited to being only one voice in a hundred. As attorney general, he will, with Bush's assent or acquiescence, be able to mount his culture war in a much more direct way: by choosing cases the government will pursue, such as trying to overturn Roe vs. Wade; by setting law enforcement priorities, such as an Ed Meese-like assault on free speech and barely a shrug at racial profiling; and by subjecting potential federal judicial nominees to his own Religious Right litmus test.

In the same 1997 speech, Ashcroft vowed to use his seat on the Senate Judiciary Committee to block President Clinton's "activist" judicial nominees. "We need nominees," said Ashcroft, "who care more about preserving and restoring the Constitution than running schools, parks and prisons."

Which Constitution? The one the Founders wrote or the one Ashcroft tried to? And what exactly does he mean by judges running schools, parks and prisons? Is Ashcroft, who accepted an honorary degree from the historically segregationist Bob Jones University and who once defended the Confederate cause in Southern Partisan magazine, unhappy that the federal judiciary ordered states to respect equal protection of law by integrating and more equitably funding public schools? Is Ashcroft, who pushed through legislation to send tax money to religiously affiliated charities and who favors vouchers for parochial schools, disappointed with the courts for banning organized school prayer and being true to Thomas Jefferson's wall of separation between church and state?

Federal courts get involved in prison administration when prisoners have been brutalized or denied constitutionally minimum care. Is this what Ashcroft is grumbling about?

Since his office failed to return my call, these questions will have to remain unanswered until his confirmation hearing.

There, I only hope he gets as good as he gave.

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