NARAL and Mud Slinger Reid Finding Dirt Together

A story by Robert Novak on RealClearPolitics.com: Probing Judges

He[Mike Rice] and Craig Varoga, a former aide to Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, are partners in a California political consulting firm. Their May 5 petition requested financial information on 30 appellate judges in all but one of the country's judicial circuits, including nine widely mentioned Supreme Court possibilities. Varoga & Rice's client: NARAL Pro-Choice America.

One of the appellate judges who learned that his financial records were sought by a Democratic political consulting firm told a friend that he felt violated by this political intrusion. He did not know that the firm's client was NARAL.

The abortion advocacy group surely was not asking the judges' views on abortion. Nancy Keenan, who has been NARAL's president some five months, told this column her organization is concerned about "out of touch theological activists" becoming judges. Why seek financial information from them? She said the disclosure information might help identify the "character" of judicial nominees.

How can anyone really claim these judicial nominees aren't being targeted for their religious beliefs? Reid's front organization, funded by NARAL, is clearly looking for financial information to disguise a religious test of judicial nominees.