New People For ad challenges sympathetic portrayal of nominees Owen, Brown

As a new ad hits the airwaves to build support for Republican leaders’ threats to break Senate rules, People For the American Way is firing back with its own ad defending the filibuster as an important part of our system of checks and balances.

The new PFAW ad reminds viewers that more than 200 of President Bush’s judicial nominees – more than 95 percent – have been confirmed, and that the threatened “nuclear option” is about its proponents’ desire for unchecked power.

The PFAW ad also provides information about the controversial judicial records of appeals court nominees Priscilla Owen and Janice Rogers Brown, which are glossed over in an ad being launched today by Progress for America. People For the American Way has published substantive critiques of their records and judicial philosophies.

“Americans want to preserve checks and balances,” said People For the American Way President Ralph G. Neas. “Nuclear option proponents are trying to distract people from their plan to gut the checks and balances that prevent partisan domination of our courts. So it’s no wonder they’re working with the same masters of deception and distraction that brought us the ‘Swift Boat’ smears.”

“We anticipated that Progress For America and their Swift Boat allies would come up with something like the ad they released today, and so we were ready,” Neas said. “We put our ad into production over the weekend, and it will hit the airwaves tomorrow. People For the American Way has no intention of allowing misleading ads to go unanswered.”

Indeed, over the next two weeks, People For the American Way and People For the American Way Foundation intend to spend more than one million dollars in TV, radio and print ads.

Neas noted that a number of recent polls confirm that a strong bipartisan majority of the American people reject Republican leaders’ plans to eliminate the filibuster on judicial nominees and overturn more than 200 years of Senate rules and traditions.

“We are confident that a bipartisan Senate majority will ultimately reject a ‘nuclear’ attack on our checks and balances,” said Neas. “Americans know that our country works best when no one party has absolute power.”