Senate Rejects Clinton Nominee

Senate Republicans for the first time voted down a Clinton judicial nominee Tuesday, saying they were upset by the Missouri judge's opposition to the death penalty. Several Democrats suggested race was a factor.

The strict party-line 54-45 vote on the nomination of Ronnie White, the first black on Missouri's state supreme court, angered Democrats and disrupted what had appeared to be progress in getting the Senate to move on long-stalled nominations to federal judge seats.

CBS News White House Correspondent Mark Knoller reports a furious-sounding President Clinton denounced the Senate vote, calling it "a disgraceful act of partisan politics by the Republican majority."

The president said the vote against White's confirmation "provides strong evidence for those who believe that the Senate treats minority and women judicial nominees unequally."

He said Judge White ''was a casualty of a judicial confirmation process that has lost any pretense of fairness.''

Following the White vote, the Senate did confirm two judges -- one a close friend of Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, and the other a top Justice Department official backed by Democrats.

But the vote on White cut deeply along partisan lines. Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont, the ranking Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, said he hoped the country "has not reverted to a time in its history where there was a color test on nominations."

The vote is "going to create division and animus in this country of ours," added Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y.

Republicans quickly retorted that White was rejected because of his record in opposing the death penalty and concerns raised by numerous law enforcement groups about his nomination.

"I am offended by that statement," Senate GOP Whip Don Nickles, R-Okla., said of Leahy's comments. "Many people on our side didn't know what color Mr. White was."

Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, R-Miss., said that of 19 judicial nominees confirmed this year before Tuesday, four have been women, one a black and four Hispanics. "Their record and the kind of judge that the men and women would make is the only thing that has been a factor."