Jesse Jackson Rallies Anti-Aschcroft Campaign

W A S H I N G T O N, Jan. 1, 2001 -- Civil rights groups will publicly confront Democratic senators and demand that they vote against their former Republican colleague, John Ashcroft, for attorney general, civil rights activist Jesse Jackson said today.

Jackson said the groups, joined by organized labor, will concentrate their lobbying away from Washington and confront lawmakers at public events such as Martin Luther King Day celebrations this month.

The effort also will try to defeat the nomination of New Jersey Gov. Christie Whitman as administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency.

Ashcroft, a Missouri conservative, lost re-election to the Senate in November; his Democratic opponent, Gov. Mel Carnahan, died in a plane crash before the election, but his name remained on the ballot.

Ashcroft has been known for his staunch anti-abortion stand and for leading a drive to kill the nomination of Missouri Supreme Court Judge Ronnie White, who is black, to the federal bench.

Public Challenge

Whitman has drawn the ire of blacks because of racial profiling by the New Jersey state police and because of a photograph of the governor frisking a young black man detained by the police.

Jackson told The Associated Press that Democratic senators “will be challenged very publicly. Those who are with the civil rights agenda must not choose collegiality over civil rights and social justice.”

The new Senate will be split 50-50, although incoming Vice President Dick Cheney can break a tie. Senators are known for supporting nominations of former colleagues — and Jackson’s comment about collegiality was aimed at that tradition.

Before the lobbying spreads around the nation, the effort kicks off with a news conference Tuesday in Washington by the Black Leadership Forum, an umbrella organization of civil rights groups.

On Inauguration Day, Jan. 20, there will by a rally in Tallahassee, Fla., protesting the number of votes thrown out in minority precincts in that state, in Chicago and other locations, Jackson said.

Ashcroft has countered the criticism by noting he supported 90 percent of the black judicial nominees who came up for a vote.

As Missouri governor from 1985 to 1993, he signed into law a state holiday honoring King; established musician Scott Joplin’s house as Missouri’s only historic site honoring a black individual; created an award honoring black educator George Washington Carver; named a black woman to a state judgeship; and led a fight to save Lincoln University, which was founded by black soldiers.

Whitman: I Stepped Over Line

Whitman is a moderate who supports abortion rights.

She has repeatedly defended her administration by saying hers was the first to admit to racial profiling and to take steps to eliminate it.

Last year, a picture was released showing her frisking a black youth during a police tour in Camden, N.J., in 1996.

“Did I step over a line from being an observer to a participant that I shouldn’t have and didn’t need to in that instance? Yes,” Whitman said in an interview last July. “But unfortunately that is my nature. When they said, ‘Do you want to do it,’ I said sure, without thinking, and I should have thought.”