Word: alabamas
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...important Southern Democrat who remained undecided last week was Alabama's Howell Heflin, a member of the Judiciary Committee. During the hearings, Heflin seemed to be leaning toward Bork. But in the wake of Southern poll results and the anti-Bork stands of some of his colleagues, the Senator appeared to be wavering. Emerging from a meeting with the President, Heflin tried to explain his ambivalence regarding the judge. "He could be an evolving individual with a great intellectual curiosity to experience the unusual, the unknown, the strange," said Heflin. "On the other hand, he may be a reactionary weirdo...
SCHOOL PRAYER. Two years ago, when the court overturned an Alabama law that provided for a moment of silent "meditation or voluntary prayer" in the public schools, Powell and Justice Sandra Day O'Connor wrote in separate concurrences that a simple moment-of-silence law might be constitutional. This week the court will hear arguments concerning a New Jersey law that merely permits a moment of silent "contemplation and introspection." Two lower courts have already found the law unconstitutional, after concluding that despite its neutral language, the statute has a religious purpose...
Heflin's defection was particularly damaging to Bork's chances for confirmation, since White House officials were hoping to use a "yes" vote from the former chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court to attract other conservative Southern Democrats to Bork's side...
...miss owing to the length of much of the testimony -- Specter is the least predictable of the three fence-sitters. Bork lobbyists conceded last week that Arizona Democrat Dennis DeConcini may be "gone," likely to join six other Democrats considered certain to reject the judge. Forecasters think that Alabama's Howell Heflin will be the only Democrat on the panel to vote for Bork, joining five certain Republican supporters...
Despite Bork's gruff but courteous style and ability to turn the hearings into a legal seminar, the "confirmation conversion" issue could keep him from winning Senate approval. The three swing men -- Republican Specter and Democrats DeConcini and Howell Heflin of Alabama -- expressed reservations about Bork's ever changing views. "There are those who raise the issue that your changing of your position," Heflin told Bork, "came only at a time when a carrot was being dangled before your eyes." Replied Bork: "I can assure you that that's not the way I operate...