WASHINGTON, March 15: US President George W. Bush suffered a political setback on Friday as Senate Democrats blocked his efforts to promote a conservative judge, in what they view as a White House bid to hand over control of the US justice system to ultra-conservatives.

It was the first time since Bush became president that Senate Democrats, who control the upper chamber by a single vote, had snubbed a Bush nominee.

Bush had gone out on a limb in recent weeks to promote his choice of conservative Mississippi judge Charles Pickering, 64, for an appeals court post in New Orleans.

Bush even invited Pickering to meet Mississippi Democrats at the White House last week, to show that his nominee is not the civil rights bugaboo some opponents painted him to be.

But those efforts were in vain: the Senate judiciary committee rejected Pickering’s nomination by a partisan ten to nine vote on Thursday, preventing the nomination from proceeding to the Senate for a wider vote.

Pickering’s nomination sparked a legislative battle unseen since Bush named conservative John Ashcroft as his pick for attorney general.

In the United States the president appoints federal judges to life terms, but the Senate must confirm the White House choice.

Some Democratic senators, like Senator Charles Schumer of New York, made it clear that their thumbs-down was not merely a reaction to Pickering, but a refusal to let the White House stock the federal justice system with super-conservative judges.

Democrats are particularly worried about any potential vacancy on the Supreme Court, which already leans to the right in its rulings. During his presidential campaign, Bush expressed admiration for the most conservative of the nine justices, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas.

Another conservative appointment to the Supreme Court could send shock waves through US society, creating an opening for a review of the legality of abortion, for example, which is fiercely opposed by the Christian right and “right to life” advocates.

Bush said he was “very disappointed” by the Pickering vote.

“I am deeply disappointed that Judge Charles Pickering, a distinguished judge who was unanimously confirmed by the Senate in the past, is being denied the opportunity to further serve his country,” he said.

“The action of the Senate Judiciary Committee to refuse Judge Pickering a vote by the full Senate leaves another empty seat in the federal judiciary at a time when we face a vacancy crisis. It was unfortunate for democracy and unfortunate for America.”

The nominations of 22 of 29 judges tapped by Bush are still up for confirmation.

But the Democratic victory could be short-lived, if Republicans, riding on the coattails of the very popular president, manage to regain control of the Senate in legislative elections in November.—AFP