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July 2, 2008
Burress, Schlafly, Barton Dispense with McCain Foreplay
After a private meeting with John McCain, Ohio Religious Right icon Phil Burress remained a little ho-hum about the candidate he felt obligated to support, but soon enough—after McCain announced his support for California’s anti-gay marriage amendment, anyway—Burress was bubbling over with excitement:
He says McCain was courteous and took detailed notes on what the six had to say about issues such as the sanctity of life, marriage, and judges. "It was so refreshing to me because he was so different than any other politician that I have ever met," describes Burress. He says McCain is not swayed like other politicians. …
"...[I] left there a changed man," he admits.
Burress wrote to his supporters that after the meeting, “40 Ohio Pro-Family Forum leaders … have decided to move forward and start working to educate Ohio Values Voters about the vast differences between McCain and Obama.”
I was once one of those people who said "no way" to Senator John McCain as President. No longer. The stakes are too high. And if Obama wins I need to able to get up on November 5th, look at myself in the mirror, and when I pray, say, "Lord, I did all that I could."
And today, Burress joined a hundred other activists—including far-right heavyweights Phyllis Schlafly and David Barton—in Denver to commit to campaign for McCain:
"Collectively we feel that he will support and advance those moral values that we hold much greater than Obama, who in our view will decimate moral values," said Mat Staver, the chairman of Liberty Counsel, a legal advocacy group, who previously supported Mike Huckabee's candidacy. …
The group included leaders like Phyllis Schlafly, the long-time leader of Eagle Forum; Steve Strang, the publisher of Charisma magazine; Phil Burress, a prominent Ohio marriage and anti-pornography activist; David Barton, the founder of WallBuilders and Donald Hodel, a former secretary of the Interior, who previously served on the board of Focus on the Family. Jim Dobson, the head of Focus and an outspoken critic of McCain, did not attend. The McCain campaign was also not directly represented at the meeting.
A second person who attended the event, but asked not to be named, said that the group was motivated principally by a desire to defeat Barack Obama. "None of these people want to meet their maker knowing that they didn't do everything they could to keep Barack Obama from being president," the participant said. "You've got these two people running for president. One of them is going to become president. That's the perspective. That that's the whole discussion." …
On a recent swing through Ohio, McCain met with a group of religious leaders and activists, including Burress, who has previously been critical of McCain's lack of outreach to Christian conservatives. According to two participants at the Tuesday meeting in Denver, Burress spoke out strongly in favor of uniting behind McCain's candidacy.
Staver said the McCain campaign was making progress but still had more work to do. "I think that the outreach to the community has to increase significantly," he said. "There is a clear enthusiasm."
Posted by Ezra at 5:18 PM | Permalink
June 6, 2008
Ritter Responds to Restroom Hullabaloo
You know Governor Bill Ritter is in trouble when Eldon Coffey of Pear Park, Colorado says he’s “appalled” by the so-called restroom bill. Ritter, however, blames Focus on the Family for “distort[ing] the public’s view” of the bill with statements like “The next time you visit Colorado, you may run into members of the opposite sex when you use a public restroom.” Ritter explains that he never planned to mention the bill in tourism brochures: “That bill, in my mind, was about looking at equal rights…Focus on the Family has run what I would call a fear-based campaign.”
Posted by Chris at 11:59 AM | Permalink
May 28, 2008
A “Brave New World” in Colorado
Tom Minnery of Focus on the Family weighs in on the continuing story of Colorado’s SB 200, the bill which seeks to “normalize all varieties of sexual orientation” with coed restrooms and fundamentally alter Colorado’s culture: “With SB 200, however, we no longer have two 'sexes'; we enter a brave new world with a myriad of 'sexual orientations' that must not be discriminated against, upon pain of the substantial civil and criminal penalties contained in the bill.”
Posted by Kyle at 5:32 PM | Permalink
May 22, 2008
Focus On The Family Seeks to Protect Colorado From Dangerous "Men in Dresses"
With Senate Bill 200 on its way to the desk of Colorado Governor Bill Ritter, right-wing groups in the state have gone into battle mode to get him to veto the legislation, claiming that it will somehow protect sexual predators by forcing everyone to share the same bathroom.
Equal Rights Colorado explains that SB 200:
[W]ill expand language prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, including transgender status, in housing practices, public accommodation, eligibility for jury service, availability of family planning services, as well as many other areas. This is a chance to update the current laws in order to have consistency and predictability in the way Colorado's anti-discrimination laws are applied. It will also add sex, marital status, disability, age, national origin, ancestry and religion as needed."
That sounds like a good thing ... unless, of course, you are Focus on the Family, in which case you choose to interpret the legislation in a far more ludicrous fashion and then run this radio ad in the state:
"Mom..."If the Colorado legislature has its way...
"A man in a dress came into the girl's restroom at school today."
We could all be dealing with a new type of predator.
"Honey, there was a man in the women's showers at the gym today, and the management said it was, it was Colorado law."
And instead of our kids worrying about class work, they'll be worrying about who might be in the restroom with them.
"No way I'm going in there (school bell), I'd rather wait all day if a guy's in there."
Our children must be protected from predators, but if Governor Ritter won't veto Senate Bill 200, all public restrooms, including those in our public schools, will be open to anyone of any sex.
Colorado's Democrat-controlled legislature has already passed this bill, but Governor Ritter still has time to veto it. Call him now and ask him to protect our kids and veto SB 200. Call 303-866-2471. 303-866-2471.
Posted by Kyle at 3:03 PM | Permalink
April 10, 2008
Schaffer, Abramoff, and TVC
The Denver Post reports that The Traditional Values Coalition financed then-Congressman, and curent Senate candidate, Bob Schaffer's trip the to Mariana Islands on behalf of Jack Abramoff: "Schaffer's $13,000 trip was paid for by the Orange County, Calif.-based Traditional Values Coalition, which Schaffer described as a religious group 'concerned with human rights.'"
Posted by Kyle at 2:45 PM | Permalink
February 29, 2008
Huckabee Hears a Who
Mike Huckabee endorsed the Colorado egg-as-person amendment, as that effort seeks to capitalize on upcoming Dr. Seuss film. More on that amendment here.
Posted by Ezra at 2:46 PM | Permalink
February 22, 2008
Huckabee’s Two-Fer
Amid a heated battle in the Wisconsin primary this week, Mike Huckabee took some time off for a side trip to the Cayman Islands to earn a little money before returning to the campaign trail, only to be summarily trounced by John McCain in the state’s primary.
On the heels of this loss, Huckabee beat a path down to Texas where he is making a last stand, seemingly realizing that if he cannot win there, he might finally be forced to admit defeat and drop out.
But just because Texas represents his last hope to keep his campaign alive doesn’t mean he can afford to pass up an opportunity to head to Colorado to make some money and, more importantly, meet privately with James Dobson:
Despite continuing to battle rival John McCain in his up hill battle for the Republican nomination, Mike Huckabee will be dropping off the campaign trail today to give his second paid speech in a week, Fox News has learned.
The former Arkansas governor will be speaking to the annual retreat for the Colorado-based group, Leadership Program of the Rockies, event organizers tell Fox. Leadership staffers, nor the campaign would reveal the amount he will be paid for the speech. He will also be meeting behind closed doors with Focus on the Family’s Dr. James Dobson, who recently endorsed Huckabee. It will be an informal meeting at the organization’s headquarters in Colorado Springs, according to Dobson aides.
Posted by Kyle at 3:40 PM | Permalink
February 1, 2008
Anti-Abortion Activists Air Their Drama via Presidential Race
“American RTL 3, Romney 0”: So boasted a press release from a new and little-known anti-abortion group. American Right to Life Action, a 527 that formed in November, seems to be dedicated entirely to opposing Mitt Romney.
The group started with an ad in Iowa (“Mitt Romney, willing to sacrifice children, lying for your vote,” it concluded), although it’s not clear how widely it was placed. "We have tested this ad with focus groups," said the group’s president, Steve Curtis, "and it has everyone laughing, laughing with us, at Mitt Romney for being such an obvious liar about the most important issue for any leader in America: abortion." ARTL updated the ad for South Carolina, while issuing press releases denouncing Romney endorsers Bob Jones III and Ann Coulter. And in Florida, the group sent out half a million anti-Romney e-mails. “The evidence is indisputable -- Mitt Romney is lying to get Christian votes," said Brian Rohrbough, the ARTL’s vice president.
According to Curtis, ARTL “went head-to-head” with Romney, who indeed lost those three elections—although claiming credit for Romney’s losses is somewhat analogous to the American Family Association’s constant boasting that its anti-gay boycott is the cause of the Ford Motor Company’s rust-belt woes.
But despite its dogged pursuit of Romney, ARTL is not your typical flash-in-the-pan anti-Mitt outfit (like Janet Folger’s new front group). One clue was this gratuitous swipe at the National Right to Life Committee after the latter endorsed Fred Thompson:
Denver-based "American Right To Life Action also calls National RTL's support of Mitt Romney a betrayal of the innocent," said Curtis. NRTL is playing the odds, and "doubled down," officially endorsing anti-human life amendment Fred Thompson, while supporting their own longtime general counsel for serving as a "key advisor" to the Romney campaign. "The Republican National Committee has given hundreds of thousands of dollars to NRTL, which calls into question NRTL's loyalty to the unborn," added Curtis, "especially now that its political architect, James Bopp, is endorsing a pro-abortion candidate like Mitt Romney who plainly lies to deceive pro-lifers."
Huh? Paul Weyrich, a Romney backer, accused NRLC of selling out when it picked Thompson, but it seems a little far-fetched to make it out to be a secret, Br’er Rabbit-like endorsement of an opposing candidate.
In fact, American Right to Life was founded to counter the National Right to Life Committee, which ARTL vice president Rohrbough calls the “Judas” of the anti-abortion movement.
Last year, Rohrbough—who also heads Colorado Right to Life—was at the center of a factional dispute between anti-abortion groups. A coalition of absolutists placed newspaper ads attacking James Dobson, a hero on the Religious Right, for his supposed backsliding. The offense? Dobson had praised the Supreme Court for upholding the “Partial Birth Abortion Ban”—a major shift in the court’s stance on reproductive rights, but short of a total ban.
The National Right to Life Committee jumped to Dobson’s defense, only to have its own Colorado state affiliate fire back:
"What happened in the abortion world is that groups like National Right to Life, they're really a wing of the Republican Party, and they're not geared to push for personhood for an unborn child -- they're geared to getting Republicans elected," he said. "So we're seeing these ridiculous laws like the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban put forward, and then we're deceived about what they really do."
NRLC dropped its ties with Colorado RTL, setting up a division between absolutists and incrementalists: the latter backing candidates and stressing judicial nominations, while Rohrbough and friends turned to “personhood” amendments and came together to form American Right to Life.
So far, the dispute has kept to bitter comments—and to the presidential race—but Curtis and Rohrbough should watch their back: A previous NRLC knock-off, also called American Right to Life, was sued by NRLC and that “Judas” Bopp several years back.
Posted by Ezra at 6:12 PM | Permalink
January 18, 2008
Why Seek Consensus When You Can Complain?
As we have noted several times in the past, nothing can rally the Right quite like a battle over judicial nominations - and just because there aren't any high profile battles taking place right now doesn't mean the Right isn't still complaining about the issue:
In an interview with Cybercast News Service, Curt Levey, general counsel of the Committee for Justice, pointed out there is always a temptation for those who are in the opposite party from the president "to not fill vacancies in the hopes that the next president will be from their party."Levey might not believe the Thurmond Rule exists, but it does and this article from 1980 explains where it origniated:"That temptation becomes very great when you're only a few months away from an election," Levey added.
However, Levey and others question whether the Thurmond Rule has ever actually existed.
There is no explicit deadline for the rule to take effect within the election year, and the term "consensus nominee" also has no definitive meaning.
REPUBLICANS FIGHT CARTER NOMINEES
14 September 1980
The New York TimesSenate Republicans have begun an organized campaign to use various parliamentary strategems, from committee boycotts to filibusters, to ''slow down or completely stop'' Presidential appointments that could outlast the Carter Administration.
The action was taken last month by the 41-member Senate Republican Caucus, which appointed a three-member committee to sift 155 pending Presidential nominations and weed out those whose terms would overlap that of a new President.
The primary targets include 13 judicial nominees as well as nominees to vacancies on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the National Labor Relations Board, the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Equal Employment Opportunities Commission and the Legal Services Corporation, among other agencies. Not affected are nominations to advisory boards and those who serve at the pleasure of the President without any fixed term.
Republicans contend that they are merely upholding a Senate tradition in preventing President Carter from making election-year appointments to positions that a Republican President could be able to fill.
If Republicans are concerned about getting President Bush's judicial nominees confirmed before he leaves office, one way to overcome the Thurmond Rule would be to consult with senators and nominate consensus nominees - of course, that is exactly the opposite of what they are doing:
Colorado Sen. Ken Salazar, one of 14 senators who broke a logjam of judicial appointments in the 2005 ''Gang of 14'' compromise, said Thursday the White House has failed to consult with him on appointments to the federal district court in Denver.''I have not been consulted with by the White House in any way, shape or form on these judicial nominations,'' said Salazar, a Democrat. ''In my view, it's a violation of our understanding with the president and the requirement of the Constitution.''
...
With pressure mounting to supply the president with names of potential judges, [Republican Senator Wayne] Allard said Thursday that he and Salazar could not agree on candidates after beginning discussion in September.
Allard said he had proposed a list of four candidates that included a Democrat, an undecided and two Republicans one of which was endorsed by Democratic Gov. Bill Ritter, a former Denver district attorney.
But Allard said Salazar, a Democrat, was unhappy with the list. Allard said he submitted the names anyway.
...
Allard said the president has already vetted the names he submitted and is ready to release them.
Posted by Kyle at 4:20 PM | Permalink
January 3, 2008
State-Level Abortion Bans Head for 2008 Ballots
Activists are likely to place a far-reaching abortion ban on the Missouri ballot this year, one pegged to the emerging anti-abortion strategy of claiming to be protecting women. The Baltimore Sun reports:
If passed, it would stand as possibly the most restrictive abortion law in the country, requiring abortion providers to investigate each patient's background and lifestyle in order to certify that the woman was not coerced into the procedure.
Under the initiative, doctors would not be allowed to perform a nonemergency abortion unless they believed "the imminent death or serious risk of substantial and irreversible impairment of a major bodily function of the pregnant woman" would occur.
Critics say the proposal would expose doctors to lawsuits from women who later regretted their decisions to terminate pregnancies. …
Anti-abortion groups say the proposal would make Missouri a model for the country.
Missouri Gov. Matt Blunt laid groundwork last fall by forming a “task force” on “the impact of abortion on women,” a group composed of anti-abortion activists, and a major backer of the initiative is the Illinois-based Elliot Institute, whose founder was described as the “Moses” of the movement to define anti-choice as a defense of women’s interests, whether the women know it or not.
This tactic found validation in last year’s Supreme Court decision upholding the “Partial Birth Abortion Ban”—the court’s majority opinion seemed to echo the paternalist view, a point certainly not missed by any activists attempting to pass a far-reaching abortion ban.
But an initiative likely to reach the Colorado ballot takes a different approach: giving fertilized eggs equal protection and full rights under law. Playing the ingénue, the 20-year-old law student spearheading the amendment “insists her only aim is to define when human life begins, and any discussion about abortion is up to lawmakers.” Of course the “Human Life Amendment,” as it has been known since before she was born, was designed specifically to overturn Roe v. Wade and ban abortion completely.
The hard-line approach of Colorado’s amendment—and a similar initiative being considered for the ballot in Georgia—goes to the heart of a rift between absolutists and incrementalists in the anti-abortion movement. From the Washington Times:
"National Right to Life thinks this will do more harm than good," [Brian Rooney of the Thomas More Law Center, which backs the amendments] said. "They argue that the makeup of the court isn't right for a decision. We argue that this is the best opportunity we're likely to have in the next decade. If we don't confront Roe now, the way the politics of the presidential election are going, we could be waiting for years."
Indeed, National Right to Life ended up divorcing its Colorado affiliate last year after a spat over incrementalism. (The head of Colorado Right to Life accused NRLC of selling out to the Republican Party.)
Posted by Ezra at 6:52 PM | Permalink
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