Bill Frist’s religious-right friends, with whom he’ll be spending time this weekend, have quite a wish list when it comes to the federal judiciary.
Evangelical Christian leaders, who have been working closely with senior Republican lawmakers to place conservative judges in the federal courts, have also been exploring ways to punish sitting jurists and even entire courts viewed as hostile to their cause.
An audio recording obtained by the Los Angeles Times features two of the nation’s most influential evangelical leaders, at a private conference with supporters, laying out strategies to rein in judges, such as stripping funding from their courts in an effort to hinder their work.
The discussion took place during a Washington conference last month that included addresses by House Majority Leader Tom DeLay and Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, who discussed efforts to bring a more conservative cast to the courts.
Specifically, the recording featured Tony Perkins, president of the conservative Family Research Council, and the infamous James Dobson of Focus on the Family, both of whom seemed to approve of the idea of influencing the courts by cutting their budgets.
As if that weren’t bad enough, the two are under the impression that their congressional allies are amendable to the idea.
Perkins said that he had attended a meeting with congressional leaders a week earlier where the strategy of stripping funding from certain courts was “prominently” discussed. “What they’re thinking of is not only the fact of just making these courts go away and re-creating them the next day but also defunding them,” Perkins said.
He said that instead of undertaking the long process of trying to impeach judges, Congress could use its appropriations authority to “just take away the bench, all of his staff, and he’s just sitting out there with nothing to do.”
These curbs on courts are “on the radar screen, especially of conservatives here in Congress,” he said.
Less than a month later, Tom DeLay told reporters, “We set up the courts. We can unset the courts. We have the power of the purse.”
If it’s appropriate to judge GOP leaders for the company that they keep, then it’s fair to assume Frist and DeLay are stark raving mad.