You’d think, given the fact that state lawmakers will reconvene next month to pass a state budget after failing to do so in the regular session, that Senate Republicans would be hard at work meeting with the Guv to work out a GOP-backed plan, especially considering their last try netted zero Republican votes in the Indiana House.
Instead, they’re sending letters about something over which they have absolutely, positively no control and that doesn’t, in any way, affect the daily operation of state government. And Republicans wonder why they’re headed for the wilderness among moderate voters?
Thirty-one Republican state senators have asked U.S. Sens. Evan Bayh and Dick Lugar to oppose the nomination of an Indiana University law professor nominated by President Barack Obama for a senior position in the U.S. Department of Justice.
In a letter May 15, the state senators said Dawn Johnsen’s advocacy of abortion rights “is more than simply pro-choice — she is pro-choice in an extremely radical way.”
The letter, citing statements and writings by Johnsen, asks Bayh, a Democrat, and Lugar, a Republican, to oppose Johnsen’s nomination to be assistant attorney general for the Office of Legal Counsel in the Justice Department.
“It’s a statement from a very strong pro-life caucus,” said Indiana Senate President Pro Tem David Long, R-Fort Wayne. “It is not based on the fact she is pro-choice, it is based on the fact that she is radically so.”
Johnsen, in response to an e-mail from The Associated Press seeking comment, replied with an e-mail saying that as a nominee she was not to talk with the media.
White House spokeswoman Amy Brundage said Johnsen “will bring unquestioned integrity and a commitment to non-partisan interpretation of the law to the Office of Legal Counsel, and we’re pleased that both of Indiana’s senators have expressed support for her nomination.”
