If At First You Don't Succeed

Throughout his short but illustrious career, Judge Douglas Ginsburg has shown a knack for staying above the fray. As a professor at Harvard Law School from 1975 to 1983, a time when ferocious political debate polarized the faculty, he made no enemies in either the liberal or the conservative camp. At the White House Office of Management and Budget in 1984 and 1985, Ginsburg grappled with an array of aggressive interest groups and lobbyists over environmental regulations and rules concerning safety in the workplace; yet he won high marks from both Republicans and Democrats on Capitol Hill for his adept handling of the job. "He can walk through land mines," says former OMB General Counsel Michael Horowitz. "He's careful, thoughtful and manages to bring people together."

Ginsburg will need all the equanimity he can muster as he prepares for what could be yet another explosive Supreme Court confirmation fight. Last week Ronald Reagan nominated the 41-year-old jurist as an Associate Justice of the court. Ginsburg, like Reagan's first choice, the defeated Robert Bork, is a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. Last month, as one Senator after another denounced Bork's ideological views, the President promised that his next nominee would be just as objectionable to liberals as Bork had been. Reagan may have made good on his promise.

To liberals, the most disturbing thing about Ginsburg is his chief sponsor: Attorney General Edwin Meese. After watching Ginsburg during the young lawyer's two years of service in the Justice Department's Antitrust Division, Meese became convinced that he was a true believer in the conservative cause, and lobbied hard for his appointment. Meese had to prevail over White House Chief of Staff Howard Baker, who preferred that the President nominate moderate, mainstream, conservative Judge Anthony Kennedy, an eleven-year veteran of the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court in California.

Reagan did not decide who would get the nod until he met with Baker and Meese Thursday morning, hours before he was scheduled to announce the nomination. Although Baker warned that Ginsburg might have confirmation problems, Meese won the day. Afterward, Reagan heard from Senate right-wingers like Jesse Helms, who argued that appointing a "vanilla conservative" like Kennedy would be a surrender to the anti-Bork forces.

The President did not meet his new nominee until half an hour before he presented him in the East Room of the White House. If Reagan knows little about Ginsburg, he has a lot of company: the prospective Justice has been an appeals-court judge for less than a year and has written just 18 published opinions. Massachusetts Senator Edward Kennedy was concerned that Ginsburg might be a "Judge Bork without the paper trail." But most lawmakers reserved their opinions. "I am not in a position to offer any assessment of his nomination at this point," said Judiciary Committee Chairman Joseph Biden. "He will receive a full and fair hearing."