By Carl Weiser
Enquirer Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON - The Senate Judiciary Committee voted 11-8 Thursday to approve a controversial Columbus lawyer for a seat on a Cincinnati court one step below the U.S. Supreme Court.

Jeffrey Sutton's nomination to the 6th U.S. Circuit of Appeals is expected to be taken up in the full Senate within weeks.

If Thursday's committee meeting was any indication, it will be a contentious debate.

"He favors ideas over people, states rights over civil rights, and a patchwork of local rules over national standards," said Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., top Democrat on the committee.

All the Democrats except Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California voted against Sutton; all the Republicans voted for him.

The committee put off a vote on nine other nominees including Justice Deborah Cook of the Ohio Supreme Court, who was nominated for the same court as Sutton; and Gregory Frost, nominated to U.S. District Court for Southern Ohio.

Sutton, 42, is a former Ohio state solicitor. Along with Cook, he was first nominated for the court seat in May 2001, part of President Bush's first batch of nominees. But Democrats refused to hold a hearing on the two when they controlled the Senate.

On Thursday, Democratic senators said they wanted more time to question Cook. They accused Republicans of trying to ram nominees through.

"I was not elected to be a rubber stamp," Leahy said.

Environmentalists, liberal groups, and disabled activists have led the fight against Sutton, saying that in cases he has argued and won as a lawyer, he took the wrong side - fighting against the poor, the disabled, and the environment.

"I'm really disheartened," said disabled activist Rosemary Ciotti, one of about 20 who watched the committee approve Sutton. "As more and more people become elderly and disabled, this is not a good omen."

But Republicans like Ohio Sen. Mike DeWine said they were confusing Sutton's clients with his beliefs.

Sutton did win a case in the Supreme Court that limited the rights of some disabled people, but he was simply a lawyer representing a client, DeWine said.

Nor were his arguments "extreme," as Leahy charged, DeWine said. After all, the Supreme Court has agreed with him in most of the 12 cases he's argued.

The Cincinnati-based 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals serves Ohio, Kentucky, Michigan and Tennessee. Of the 16 seats on the court, six are vacant.