Senate will vote on Bork nomination

Press, 8 October 1987, Page 6

Senate will vote on Bork nomination

NZPA-Reuter Washington The t nomination of Robert Bork to the United States Supreme Court is heading for the full Senate after a major defeat in the Senate Judiciary Committee, as President Reagan promises to fight on for the controversial judge. The committee voted nine to five to send Judge Bork’s name to the 100member Senate with an unfavourable recommendation to replace Justice Lewis Powell, who retired from the nation’s highest court in June. . .. “I think it looks fairly grim, but .the President ; wants to push oh. Wire 1 not giving up,’’ the, Senate Republican leader, Robert Dole, of Kansas, said in a televised interview. Mr Dole said he and others supporting Judge

Bork Would meet with the .nominee today and suggested that Judge Bork might want to withdraw if it appeared he had no chance of being confirmed. “He’s got rights too," Mr Dole said. “I don’t think there is any reasonable prospect Judge Bork will be confirmed,” the committee chairman, Joseph Biden, a Delaware Democrat, said after the vote. “There are still unde-, elded votes and he (Mr Reagan) intends to press hard and try to win it,” a White House spokesman, Marlin Fitzwater, said; t . “I am saying I am not going to withdraw this nomination,” Mr Reagan said before the vote, “and I’m going to continue to do everything I can to get him confirmed.” He said Judge Bork was

one of the most-qualified candidates ever nominated to the Supreme Court and said opponents “have made this a political contest by using tactics and distortions that I think are deplorable.” Opponents say Judge Bork was an extremist who was not sensitive enough to the rights of women and minorities. They fear his vote could shift the balance on the nine-member cqurt on such big Issues as abortion and civil liberties for many years. The assistant Democrat leader, Alan Cranston, said S 4 senators now.,oppose Judgeßork, r 42are for him and four remain undecided. White 4 House officials say the vote in the full Senate, which could come by next week, was still close enough to win confirmation.