Women's Rights Supporters Applaud Pickering Defeat, Prepare For Next Battle

March 14, 2002

"It's about the best news I've heard all week, but the struggle is far from over," said National Organization for Women (NOW) President Kim Gandy, responding to the Senate Judiciary Committee's vote against the nomination of Charles Pickering, Sr. "NOW thanks and applauds all the Senators who stood on principle and voted against this women's rights opponent. " NOW has publicly denounced the nomination of Pickering, citing his lack of judicial restraint and his longstanding opposition to women's rights, abortion rights and other civil rights.

"In the past weeks, conservative Republicans Senators stooped to personal attacks on those who dared oppose this right-wing poster boy. They disparaged activist groups right along with their Senate colleagues," Gandy continued. "Their bullying didn't work this time. And it won't work next time, or the time after that. Bush needs to get the message that moderates on the Senate Judiciary Committee won't allow him to stack the federal courts with right-wing extremists. And feminists will oppose every bad judicial nominee that Bush puts forward."

"This is just the beginning. Women's rights supporters across the country—and in the Senate—will continue to press for nothing less than judicial justice," Gandy said. "If confirmed, Bush's nominees will serve for a lifetime on the bench—decades after Bush leaves office. Pickering was just one in a long line of ultraconservatives hand-picked to reverse women's and other civil rights. If all the Bush nominees are confirmed, the federal appellate courts will be in conservative alignment, so fewer bad decisions will even get a review by the Supreme Court. We need judges committed to justice for women, not ideologues dedicated to turning back the clock."

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