The Senate voted overwhelmingly today to end the Bush administration’s ability to unilaterally fill U.S. attorney vacancies as a backlash to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales’ firing of eight federal prosecutors.
Colorado’s Republican Congressman Tom Tancredo joined lawmakers from both parties calling for Gonzales to step down.
“Alberto Gonzales has repeatedly shown that he is unwilling to enforce the law and unable to effectively manage the Department,” said Tancredo, in a statement.
“Gonzales’ legacy at the DOJ has been one of misplaced priorities, political miscalculation, and a failure to enforce the laws which he has sworn to uphold. I think that it is time for him to move on,” said Tancredo.
Today, Gonzales got a morale boost with an early-morning call from President Bush, their first conversation since a week ago, when the president said he was unhappy with how the Justice Department handled the firings.
With a 94-2 vote, the Senate passed a bill that canceled a Justice Department-authored provision in the Patriot Act that had allowed the attorney general to appoint U.S. attorneys without Senate confirmation. Democrats say the Bush administration abused that authority when it fired the eight prosecutors and proposed replacing some with White House loyalists.