ASHCROFT, JOHN DAVID

ASHCROFT, JOHN DAVID

In 25 years, John Ashcroft ascended from assistant state attorney general for the state of Missouri to U.S. attorney general. The political road to the JUSTICE DEPARTMENT was paved by this conservative right-wing Republican with his hard work and strong ethics.

John David Ashcroft was born on May 9, 1942, in Chicago, Illinois. His family moved to rural Springfield, Missouri, when he was just a young boy. Springfield is the home of the Pentecostal Assembly of God Church, and since Ashcroft’s father and grandfather were Pentecostal ministers, it seemed only natural that the family would make Springfield their home.

While the church forbids smoking, drinking,
and dancing, it does promote gospel singing.
Ashcroft took up playing the guitar and singing
gospel when he was young, and it was a passion
of his ever after.

After high school, Ashcroft headed east to
Yale where he received a degree in history in
1964. He then returned to the Midwest and
studied at the University of Chicago Law School.
There he met his later wife, Janet. They both
graduated from the University of Chicago in
1967 and went on to teach business law at
Southwest Missouri State University.
In 1972 Ashcroft decided to run for a spot in
the U.S. House of Representatives.While he lost
the race, he still found his way into politics when
he was named assistant attorney general for the
state of Missouri in 1975 under then-attorney
general, John Danforth. While working there, Ashcroft met future U.S. Supreme Court Justice
CLARENCE THOMAS.
In 1976 Danforth decided to run for the U.S.
Senate, giving Ashcroft the opportunity to campaign
for the soon-to-be vacated state attorney
general position. Ashcroft won the election and,
in this new role, established his conservative reputation
when he vehemently opposed courtordered
SCHOOL DESEGREGATION in St. Louis
and Kansas City. While he could not please
everybody, he managed to please many, and he
was elected for another term, before then
becoming the 50th governor of Missouri in
1984.
Ashcroft accomplished a great deal for the
state of Missouri. He balanced budgets without
increasing taxes. He also focused on WELFARE
reform and education by imposing tougher testing
requirements for student advancement. As a
validation of these efforts, Ashcroft was reelected
to a second term as governor with an
impressive 65 percent of the vote. State law did
not allow him to run for a third term.
In 1994 Ashcroft again followed in the footsteps
of John Danforth, who was retiring from
the Senate. Ashcroft was elected to the U.S. Senate
and sworn in at the beginning of 1995.While
in Congress, Ashcroft proposed and supported
very conservative legislation, most of which did
not become law. He was pro-life, against GUN
CONTROL, and against AFFIRMATIVE ACTION.
He sponsored the Human Life Amendment,
which defined life to begin at conception and banned all ABORTIONS, including those involving
INCEST or rape, except when needed to save
the life of the mother. The legislation did not
become law.He was also unsuccessful in his support
for term limits for congressmen and prayer
in schools. Ashcroft was, however, successful
with his Charitable Choice provision, a component
of the welfare reform legislation in 1996.
The provision granted funding to religious
organizations in order to provide social welfare
programs.
In 1998 Ashcroft published a book, Lessons
from a Father to His Son, about his father’s
preachings, his Christian faith, and how it
influenced his life. Also in 1998 the Ronnie
White confirmation hearings branded him by
some as a racist. White was the first African
American Missouri Supreme Court Justice.
Then-president BILL CLINTON nominated him
to the federal bench. During White’s confirmation
hearings, Ashcroft focused on a dissent that
White made in a CAPITAL PUNISHMENT case and
argued that White was soft on crime. Yet,White
had actually voted to uphold the death penalty
in 41 of the 59 cases that he heard on the bench,
and some argued that Ashcroft attacked White
because of his race. Ultimately, the Senate voted
down White, making him the first federal judicial
nominee to be defeated since ROBERT BORK.
That same year, Ashcroft seriously considered
running for the REPUBLICAN PARTY nomination
for U.S. president. After a short-lived campaign,
however, he withdrew his name and supported
GEORGE W. BUSH.
In 2000 Ashcroft ran once again for his Senate
position, this time against Missouri governor
MEL CARNAHAN. Carnahan died with his son in
a plane crash three weeks before the election but
still won the vote by a slim margin. Ashcroft was
a gracious loser, and Carnahan’s widow was
appointed to replace her deceased husband in
the Senate.
In 2001 Ashcroft was appointed by President
Bush and confirmed by Congress for the position
of U.S. attorney general, one of the most
powerful positions in the country. As attorney
general, Ashcroft became head of the Justice
Department and would oversee many powerful
segments of the federal government, including
the DRUG ENFORCEMENT ADMINISTRATION, the
FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION, and the
U.S. MARSHALS.
The SEPTEMBER 11TH ATTACKS in 2001
caused an enormous change in the way Americans
viewed the responsibilities of the nation’s
top law enforcement officials. In the aftermath
of the attacks, Congress passed the Homeland
Security Act and the USA PATRIOT ACT, legislation that gave the Justice Department unprecedented
latitude in dealing with suspected terrorists.
In 2002 and early 2003, Ashcroft has issued
numerous regulations dealing with the issue of
domestic security and the tracking of foreign
nationals including orders that give FBI agents
and U.S. marshals permission to arrest such persons
for immigration violations when there is
not sufficient evidence to hold them on criminal
charges. The Justice Department has stepped-up
surveillance methods including the issuance of
“national security letters” that mandate businesses
to turn over electronic records of finances
and other information. Ashcroft has also signed
more than 170 classified “emergency foreign
intelligence warrants” which allow 72 hours of
wiretaps and searches of persons viewed as
national security threats before they need to be
reviewed and approved by the Foreign Intelligence
Surveillance Court.
Groups representing Muslim immigrants,
numerous civil liberties advocates, religious
groups, and others have protested much of the
DOJ activity. One program that did not pass
muster with Congress was the Terrorism Information
and Prevention System to be known by
its acronym as “Operation TIPS.” The program
was planned to train millions of American
workers including truck drivers, mail carriers,
train conductors, and employees of utilities to
look for and report any suspicious material or
activity to a new FBI database.
Other Ashcroft initiatives that have provoked
controversy include the DOJ’s challenge
to an Oregon law that permits physician-assisted
suicide and a California law that permits the
possession of marijuana for medicinal use. In
addition, Ashcroft filed a brief with the Supreme
Court in support of ending the University of
Michigan’s affirmative action admission program.
Ashcroft has continued to advocate protection
for the rights of gun owners while
pressing for more severe punishments of those
who commit capital crimes using guns or other
weapons. Despite recent state moratoriums on
capital punishment, exonerations of death row
defendants in over 100 cases, and recent
Supreme Court decisions which banned execution
of mentally retarded inmates and which
overturned cases where judges rather than juries
had imposed the death penalty, Attorney General
Ashcroft has overruled U.S. attorneys who
had decided not to seek the death penalty, and
he has approved death penalty prosecutions in
nearly half of all federal cases where capital punishment
might be applicable.

FURTHER READINGS
Annual Accountability Report. 2002. Washington, D.C.:
Department of Justice.
Branch-Brioso, Karen. 2003. “Ashcroft Reports Progress
against Terrorism with Ridge and Mueller, He Tells
Congress of Arrests, Better Information Sharing.” St.
Louis Post-Dispatch (March 5).
Cloud, John. 2001. “General on the March: John Ashcroft
Wants to Mobilize the Justice Department to Fight Terror.
Is He Going Too Far?” Time (November 19).
Fechter, Michael. 2002. “Ashcroft Defends New Wiretap
Powers.” The Tampa Tribune (November 21).