Maine as tipping point? Opinions are mixed on whether the confirmation of John Roberts will hinge on senators Snowe and Collins — but that doesn’t mean we won’t be pounded with partisan advocacy anyway BY SARA DONNELLY

In the pastel-colored administrative offices of Planned Parenthood of Northern New England, in South Portland, Grassroots Organizer Lyndsay Santeusanio outlined her plans for battle. Santeusanio, like many activists throughout Maine and the nation, had spent the recent weeks anticipating a debate over a nominee to the nation’s highest court. She expected Maine’s two Republican senators will be key to the confirmation or rejection of whoever the President nominates. So she prepared early to rally Maine constituents to then rally the senators.

It was the day before a press conference announcing a nominee to the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS), and Santeusanio had a clear idea of what PPNE needed to do once a name was dropped, whatever the name turned out to be. She sat in the communication director’s office, carefully detailing the actions and outreach Planned Parenthood would engage in to, she said, "educate" the Maine public about the nominee — the first to the Supreme Court in 11 years — and his or her potential power to alter abortion rights. Santeusanio spoke of rallies, letter-writing campaigns, and educational outreach. Beside her, communication director Skeek Frazee listened in.

Frazee said the fight would be crucial — many abortion rights activist are worried another conservative judge on the court will help roll back or overturn Roe v. Wade — but what she and PPNE have learned from the past SCOTUS battles is the fight continues long after the confirmation hearing.

"What we’ve learned is to keep going," she said. "Lyndsay’s here because we’ve realized after one [SCOTUS] resignation, they’re will be another one. And another one . . ."

Santeusanio nodded and straightened in her chair.

"But right now, this is ground zero," she said. "And this is where I need to be."

On Tuesday, July 19, President George W. Bush gave Santeusanio and the rest of the world a name. He announced that he had selected conservative lawyer John Roberts to fill the position on the Supreme Court which will be vacated by Sandra Day O’Connor. Within hours of the announcement, Ben Brandzel, Advocacy Director for the national progressive group MoveOn, sent out an email to his group’s 3.5 million members.

"Last night, President Bush nominated a right-wing lawyer and corporate lobbyist to take Justice O’Connor’s seat on the Supreme Court," Brandzel wrote in an email urging members to sign a petition against Roberts. "Tell your senators to oppose Roberts now."

Brandzel’s speedy call to action was late by some advocacy groups’ standards. NARAL Pro-Choice America, a national abortion-rights group, came out in opposition to Roberts on its Web site, www.naral.org, while the press conference was still going on ("The battle for the Supreme Court has begun: Don’t let his choice end yours" the site trumpets). On the conservative side, the nonprofit advocacy group Progress for America rallied in front of the Supreme Court building the night of the President’s announcement waving signs reading "Confirm," according to CNN. The conservative Judicial Confirmation Network launched an online petition almost immediately to confirm Roberts and has already raised $3 million for the grassroots fight.

Here in Maine, the debate over Roberts is expected to become particularly noisy. Despite a relatively quiet week without major controversy over Roberts’s record thus far, many Maine groups have already hit the ground running in staunch opposition to, or in support of, Bush’s choice — launching campaigns, research efforts, and organizing coalitions in an attempt to influence the vote of Maine’s two Republican senators, Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins. Some groups are receiving money and logistical support from national organizations like MoveOn and Progress for America, while others are plowing ahead without larger backing.

"Maine is strategically probably the most important state in the country," says Brandzel. "It’s the only state that has two Republican senators who are really in play."

"In play" is another way to say, "Snowe and Collins may be on the fence about this guy, so let’s try to catch their ear." Snowe and Collins are already nationally regarded as renegade Republicans — moderates who march to the beat of their own drummer — but they also poll as two of the country’s most-popular senators (there may very well be a cause-and-effect relationship). Sometimes they vote the party line, sometimes they don’t. For example, Snowe and Collins were two of only three Republicans who opposed Bush’s circuit court nominee William Pryor, who came up for vote June 9 (Collins sited concerns about Pryor’s temperament and his respect for the judicial system in a statement explaining her vote; Snowe did not release a related statement). The third Republican to vote against Pryor, Senator Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island, is also a swing-vote target for SCOTUS advocacy groups.

Most recently, Snowe and Collins were pivotal in maintaining the option to filibuster in the Senate (more on that later), which steered both of Maine’s senators into a coveted position of power regarding the SCOTUS nominee. Their votes have always been important to advocates because they’re swingers, but after the filibuster deal, activists and experts say Snowe and Collins could prove to be the tipping point for Roberts’s nomination.

Both senators have released noncommittal statements about Roberts imploring interest groups to let the senate examine his record without "political attacks" (Snowe) or "interest group politics" (Collins). Collin’s Press Director Jen Burita confirmed that the Senator hasn’t decided whether to support Roberts as of July 25. Snowe’s press secretary did not return repeated calls for comment. She is scheduled to meet with Roberts on Wednesday, July 27. Collins has not yet met privately with Roberts.

But Snowe’s and Collins’s request for peace and quiet most likely won’t deter many Maine activists, a good number of whom are hot, bothered, and desperately keen to launch letter-writing campaigns about arguably the most important political nomination thus far in the Bush presidency.

John Roberts Jr. has thus far proven to be a tough man to vilify. A former lawyer who has served as a judge on the US Court of Appeals since 2003, Roberts is widely regarded as an intelligent conservative who would strictly interpret the Constitution. Supporters point out that Roberts was confirmed for his previous position on the Circuit Court by a unanimous vote in the senate (it was a voice vote, so there is no official record of Snowe’s or Collin’s position on Roberts, and the vote was held up for as long as two years by various factors).

Though even White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan said on July 21 that "it’s way too early in the process to start trying to get into vote counting," many conservative Maine activists predict Roberts will sail through the confirmation process and the anticipated fight will never really materialize. But that doesn’t mean they aren’t organizing in a state which has voted democratic consistently in the last four presidential elections, but which has two incredibly popular Republican senators. Spooked by a SCOTUS confirmation vote that turned sour nearly 20 years ago when then-President Ronald Reagan’s nominee Robert Bork was denied, Tom Mead, a local consultant who is organizing Maine media outreach for the conservative group Progress for America, says the Right has learned to exchange tit for tat. A coalition of some 300 liberal groups helped sway public and political opinion against Bork (buoyed by Massachusetts Senator Ted Kennedy’s nearly immediate condemnation of Bork on the senate floor, following Reagan’s announcement), and Mead says conservatives are bound and determined not to let liberal voices drown them out this time.

"Bork signaled a new strategy for both sides," he explains. "It made Supreme Court nominations a campaign where it wasn’t before. The PFA campaign is mainly to counteract what has become a pattern of activities for liberal groups. I think that you’ll see that liberal groups will sort of be matched step for step as this becomes a big campaign."

Hello multi-million dollar crusade for a guy you claim is a shoe-in.

Progress for America has committed $18 million dollars to the nationwide fight for a Roberts confirmation and Mead says Maine is at the top of the group’s list because of its moderate senators. PFA is working closely with Maine Right to Life and local activists like Ray Richardson and Mary Adams to organize grassroots letter-writing campaigns, rallies, and petitions.

PFA is also supporting "Maine for Judge Roberts," a loose coalition of Maine groups advocating for an up or down vote on Roberts. The coalition is chaired by lawyer Michael Duddy and as of mid-June consisted of Michael Duddy and, er, Michael Duddy (Duddy says efforts to get other conservatives on board are underway). On July 20, PFA launched a $1 million nationwide TV ad campaign endorsing Roberts, though they won’t say yet whether there are any specific buys planned for Maine.

Last May, Collins’s and Snowe’s power position as two of only a handful of moderates in the Senate was super-sized.

See, Snowe and Collins are members of a small but influential group of Senators called by political wags the "Gang of 14", or, sometimes, "The Mod Squad," because, you know, they’re moderate. Many Washington, DC, observers say this bipartisan "gang" could hold an enormous amount of power during the upcoming SCOTUS nomination debate because its members will decide whether to allow a filibuster to block Roberts if the Dems decide they don’t like him. And Maine is the only state in the country with two representatives in the gang.