Wednesday, November 15, 2006

White House officials said Wednesday that President Bush would renominate six of his earlier choices to sit on the federal appeals court, leaving Democratic senators and other analysts to ponder what message he is sending.

At least four of the nominations have been declared dead on arrival in the Senate by Democrats who have consistently opposed them as unacceptable. All six nominations will remain before the Senate through the lame-duck session of Congress and then will expire.

When the 110th Congress is seated in January, Mr. Bush can deliver another list of judicial nominees to the Senate, which will by then have a Democratic majority.

Mr. Bush’s motive in sending up the nominations has been closely analyzed, with several Democrats and liberals labeling it as provocative and a sign that he does not intend to seek compromise as he suggested he would after Republican losses in the elections last week.

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Senator Patrick J. Leahy, Democrat of Vermont, who will be the leader of the Judiciary Committee, said, “Barely a week after the president promised to change course by working in a bipartisan and cooperative way with Congress, it is disappointing that he has decided to ‘stay the course’ on judicial nominees.”

But Edward Whelan, the president of the Ethics and Public Policy Center, who has supported Mr. Bush’s judicial nominations throughout the first term, said Democrats were engaging in “rhetorical gamesmanship.” He said that despite the changed numbers in the Senate, Mr. Bush was not obliged to offer a unilateral surrender. He said the president was resubmitting the nominees for the lame-duck session because Democrats had refused to comply with the usual courtesy and moved to have the nominations expire at the last recess.

The four nominees whose chances of confirmation are viewed as nearly impossible are: William J. Haynes II, the Pentagon’s general counsel who was involved in setting many of the interrogation policies for detainees; William G. Myers III, a longtime lobbyist for the mining and ranching industries and a critic of environmental regulations; Terrence W. Boyle, a district court judge in North Carolina; and Michael B. Wallace of Mississippi, a lawyer rated unqualified for the court by the American Bar Association.