Senate Committee Recommends Justices

WASHINGTON -- The Senate Judiciary Committee recommended yesterday that William H. Rehnquist be confirmed as chief justice and that Antonin Scalia take his place on the Supreme Court.

The 13-5 vote recommending Rehnquist's elevation came as Republicans easily beat back an attempt by liberal Democrats to portray him as too extreme to lead the U.S. court system.

After the Rehnquist decision, the committee voted 18-0 to recommend approval of Scalia as one of the eight Supreme Court associate justices.

Both nominations were sent to the full Senate, where Sen. Edward M. Kennedy '54 (D-Mass.) vowed that the battle over Rehnquist will be renewed.

At the White House, spokesman Larry Speakes said: "We are extremely pleased. We look forward to early, full Senate action."

The dispute over Rehnquist's qualifications remained bitter and partisan to the end, as relentless attacks were led by Kennedy and fellow Democrats Howard Metzenbaum of Ohio, Patrick Leahy of Vermont, Paul Simon of Illinois and Joseph Biden Jr. of Delaware.

But the Rehnquist attackers supported Scalia, the first Italian American to be nominated to the Supreme Court.

"Scalia is a conservative. He is not an extremist," Kennedy said.

Opponents of Rehnquist said he was insensitive to minorities and women, supported government repression of civil liberties, harassed voters in Arizona, bought property under conditions that barred its sale to Blacks and Jews, misled the committee numerous times, favored crumbling the wall between church and state, and refused to disqualify himself from a surveillance case in violation of judicial ethics.

"The record ... contains over whelming and shocking evidence ... of lifelong hostility to claims for racial justice," Kennedy said. "He's wrong on equal rights for women, wrong in support of church and state, wrong on individual freedoms protected by the First Amendment. He is an extremist, too extreme to sit as chief justice."

Supporters of the 61-year-old Rehnquist, an associate justice for nearly 15 years, struck back with equal vigor.

Sen. Paul Laxalt (R-Nev.) said Rehnquist "had everything but the kitchen sink thrown at him" yet still "came out of the hearings stronger than when he went in."

"For those who object," added Laxalt, "there will be another election."

Picking up the same theme, Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said, "If Justice Rehnquist is an extremist, then so is the president and so are the American people" who gave President Reagan election victories in 49 of 50 states.

Sen. Alan Simpson (R-Wyo.) complained, "The high standards of the Senate have been sullied and trashed in a wretched ... exercise in justice-bashing which is not very becoming."

He said Rehnquist was the victim of "harassment and hearsay that would never be admitted in any court in the world and would never be used against the most wretched felon."

But Sen. Howell Heflin (D-Ala.) who voted for Rehnquist, said, "In my opinion, these proceedings have been conducted with the utmost propriety."

One issue that played on role in committee deliberations was Rehnquist's past dependency on a powerful, hypnotic drug prescribed in conjunction with the justice's chronic back problems.

"The public knows his drug dependency was the result of the incompetence of some in the medical profession," said Leahy, one of those who voted against confirmation.