SENATE COMMITTEE BACKS BUSH CHOICE FOR JUSTICE DEPT.

WASHINGTON, Jan. 30 -- The Senate Judiciary Committee today voted 10 to 8,
largely along party lines after a heated partisan debate, to approve the
nomination of John Ashcroft as attorney general.

The nomination of Mr. Ashcroft, who has faced the most serious opposition
of any of President Bush's cabinet choices, was quickly rushed to the
Senate floor this evening by Republican leaders in hopes of a full Senate
vote by the end of the week.

"I would just hope there are no further delays," the president said at the
White House.

As it stands now, Mr. Ashcroft is expected to be confirmed, but not before
the end of the pitched debate that began briefly on the floor tonight and
is expected to continue at least through Wednesday.

All nine Republicans on the committee voted in favor of Mr. Ashcroft, a
former senator from Missouri who until his recent defeat at the polls had
been a member of the committee. Of the nine Democrats, only Senator Russell
D. Feingold of Wisconsin voted in favor of the nomination, saying he was
offering "an olive branch" but not a white flag to the new administration.

As Mr. Ashcroft's confirmation is now considered all but inevitable, the
battle turned to how many of the Senate's 50 Democrats would vote against
the nomination. While all 50 Republicans are expected to vote for Mr.
Ashcroft, only 4 Democrats have so far announced their support.

Senator Edward M. Kennedy, a Massachusetts Democrat who had earlier hinted
he might seek to mount a filibuster to block the nomination, said today
that he had decided not to do so.

The Ashcroft confirmation fight may also signal how much of a fight
President Bush can expect from Senate Democrats over future judicial
nominees and proposals on emotion-laden social issues.

The debate in the committee replayed many of the issues that have been
raised about the nomination in the last few weeks. Republicans depicted Mr.
Ashcroft as an honorable man of great experience in government who should
be given the benefit of any doubt over his fitness for the job, and
especially over his pledge that he would enforce even those laws with which
he disagreed. [Excerpts, Page A14.]

Senator Orrin G. Hatch, the Utah Republican who is the committee chairman,
said Mr. Ashcroft's opponents had conducted a disgraceful campaign. "Having
heard the relentless drumbeat of accusation after accusation in recent
weeks, I can fairly say that there has been an unyielding effort to
redefine this man of unlimited integrity," he said.

But Democrats on the committee and on the floor assailed the nomination as
a poor choice because of Mr. Ashcroft's long and resolute record in taking
starkly conservative positions. They asserted the nomination produced the
opposite effect of what was promised in President Bush's pledge to unite
and not divide the nation after the closely contested presidential election.

Senator Tom Daschle of South Dakota, the minority leader, outlined his
opposition to the nomination in a floor speech, saying: "Because of his
enormous authority and discretion, the attorney general, more than any
other cabinet member, has the power to protect or erode decades of progress
on civil rights in America. John Ashcroft has shown a pattern of
insensitivity throughout his career."

Senator Kennedy said that Mr. Ashcroft's guarantees during his two days in
the witness chair last week that he would enforce all the laws amounted "to
a remarkable revisionist remaking of his record."

Mr. Hatch disputed the assertion that Mr. Ashcroft had undergone a
"confirmation conversion." Instead, he said, "the true metamorphosis of
John Ashcroft is in the misleading picture painted of him by narrow
left-wing interest groups."

In what both Democrats and Republicans seemed to regard as an odd moment,
Mr. Feingold cast his vote in favor of the nomination after delivering
remarks in which he castigated Mr. Ashcroft's behavior, expressed deep
doubts about his character and summed up the arguments against him as
harshly as did any Democrat on the committee.

After saying he would vote to confirm Mr. Ashcroft, Mr. Feingold added:
"For many of my colleagues, friends, supporters and constituents, this is
not easy to understand."

After mentioning two issues on which he praised Mr. Ashcroft -- his stated
repugnance for racial profiling and his commitment to maintain a Justice
Department study on the death penalty -- Mr. Feingold cataloged a far
lengthier list of particulars against the nominee. Like other Democrats, he
questioned Mr. Ashcroft's pledge to uphold laws with which he disagreed
including those guaranteeing a woman's right to an abortion. He questioned
Mr. Ashcroft's sensitivity to racial issues, citing an interview he gave to
Southern Partisan, a magazine often described as a neo-Confederate, in
which he said it was important to let future generations know that the
South did not fight the Civil War for "some perverted agenda."

Mr. Feingold criticized Mr. Ashcroft's appearance at Bob Jones University
and was especially harsh about his role in opposing a voluntary
desegregation plan in St. Louis when he served as attorney general in Missouri.

Mr. Feingold also said Mr. Ashcroft's role in undermining the nomination of
Ronnie White to be a federal judge would be enough reason to vote against
him. Mr. White, the first black member of the Missouri Supreme Court, was
defeated on the Senate floor after Mr. Ashcroft described him as soft on
the death penalty and as bringing a pro-criminal agenda to the bench.

In the end, Mr. Feingold asserted that he was voting in favor of the
nominee largely in hopes that the Ashcroft confirmation would be a kind of
turning point in which both Democrats and Republicans would become more
cooperative.

"I believe the American people desperately want us to conduct ourselves,
whe re possible, in a bipartisan manner -- with civility, with give and
take -- and act as if those terms have real meaning and are not just empty
rhetoric," he said.

He said the Senate should be concerned that many Americans felt that "the
Senate's role in the nominations process has been abused and overly
politicized."

But there was little indication that that hope would be fulfilled and that
the two sides would treat each other gently. But for Mr. Feingold's
remarks, the rest of the committee followed a highly partisan pattern, with
Democrats blasting Mr. Ashcroft alternating with Republicans praising him.

Senator Charles E. Schumer, a New York Democrat on the committee, said he
was opposing Mr. Ashcroft because of his long record in trying to defeat
many of the laws he would be charged with enforcing.

"If the committee were faced with a nominee who had for the last 25 years
argued that drug dealing should be legal, but assured us he would now
prosecute drug dealers regardless of his prior personal advocacy, we would
proceed to vote 18 to 0 against him." he said.