The U.S. Senate voted 59-38 to confirm Leslie Southwick to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit on Oct. 24. The Circuit serves Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas. Gay and civil rights organizations had opposed the nominee as being insensitive to the rights of minorities.
Among the cases cited by them was a decision that Southwick joined on while serving on the Mississippi bench which removed an eight-year-old child from her biological mother, in part because the mother was a lesbian. That opinion stated that homosexuality was a 'choice' and one possible consequence was losing one's child.
In another controversial case, the judge had upheld the reinstatement of a white state employee fired for using a racial slur against a Black colleague.
Southwick's supporters denied that he is a racist and said that opponents were nit-picking at two cases among the hundreds of his decisions.
The vote was largely along party lines, with all of the Republicans supporting Southwick. They were joined by nine, generally conservative, Democrats.
The notable exception was Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., whose vote in committee allowed the nomination to get to the floor of the Senate. She even showed up at the Republican news conference that crowed about the confirmation, where Trent Lott, R-Miss., lauded Feinstein as a 'hero.'
The Democrats were not able to maintain a filibuster on the nomination, where 60 votes are required to end debate. They lost that by 62 to 35. The newspaper Roll Call said that Majority Leader Harry Reid had agreed to allow a vote in return for Republican support on budgetary issues.
Civil rights groups had led the opposition to Southwick. Wade Henderson, president of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, called the vote 'a slap in the face to African Americans and people of good will.'
'This vote for Leslie Southwick is a vote against the dignity and safety of our families, and an insult to the millions of dedicated GLBT parents raising happy and healthy children across the country,' said Joe Solmonese, president of the Human Rights Campaign. It had actively opposed the nominee.
Matt Foreman, executive director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, called it 'unconscionable that a Democratic-controlled Senate, by an overwhelming majority, would confirm a judge with such a troubling civil rights record to a lifetime seat on the federal bench.'
The vote is another in a series of events that leaves many in the liberal base of the Democratic Party wondering what they have to show for the Party taking control of Congress.