Ashcroft expected to face tough questioning at Senate confirmation hearings Tuesday

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Attorney general-designee John Ashcroft faces the Senate on Tuesday with Democratic senators expected to challenge his record on key issues including abortion and civil rights.

Beginning at 1:30 p.m. EST, the confirmation hearings are expected to last three days before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Critics of Ashcroft's nomination are expected to focus on his six years in the Senate, and his tenure as Missouri's governor and attorney general.

Ashcroft opposes abortion rights except when a woman's life is in danger, and while in the Senate pushed for a constitutional amendment banning abortion. He opposed civil rights measures to give racial preferences to minorities, and his opposition to the 1999 nomination of a black Missouri Supreme Court justice to the federal bench has drawn renewed criticism from civil rights groups.

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Ashcroft, meanwhile, met with associates Monday to rehearse expected questions and answers for the hearings. In response to one question, Ashcroft said he thought racial profiling by police was wrong.

"Not only is it wrong, I believe it is unconstitutional. It deprives people of the kind of equal standing in the law that they're entitled to," he said.

But critics say his strong disagreement with U.S. laws on some of these issues should disqualify him from the post.

"His public record makes him the wrong choice to be attorney general of the United States," said Kate Michelman, president of the National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League.

Democrats on the committee are studying and dividing up various aspects of their former colleague's record in preparation for the hearings.

Conservatives defend Ashcroft's nomination

Ashcroft's defenders say he would have no problem enforcing laws even though he may disagree with some of them. While more than 200 largely liberal special interest groups have formed a coalition to oppose Ashcroft, dozens of conservative organizations have lined up to support him.

Charles Polk, a black lawyer helping Ashcroft prepare for the Senate hearings, said there is no evidence Ashcroft is a racist -- an allegation even many of his critics reject.

"When you talk about racism what do you look for? You look for a pattern," Polk said. "The black justices that have come before him for confirmation, there were 27. He voted for 26 -- voted, yes, for 26. I see a pattern there, but the pattern is what we're all proud of."

Ashcroft will be the sole witness for the first two days of hearings. Thursday, the Senate is expected to hear from Ronnie White, the Missouri jurist whose nomination Ashcroft derailed. Ashcroft said he opposed White, who is black, because of his rulings in some death penalty cases, and that race played no factor in his opposition.

Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Massachusetts, intends to focus on civil rights issues like voting rights, affirmative action and school desegregation. Sen. Charles Schumer, D-New York, will hone in on Ashcroft's position on issues relating to abortion and gun control.

Ashcroft is also expected to be questioned about his connections to South Carolina's Bob Jones University, a conservative Christian school that until recently banned interracial dating and has called Catholicism a cult. Ashcroft, a prominent religious conservative, told an audience at the school in 1999 that the United States "has no king but Jesus."

"Unique among the nations, America recognized the source of our character as being godly and eternal, not being civic and temporal," he said.

Ashcroft's supporters point out that as Missouri's attorney general, he opposed the use of public school facilities for religious purposes. That, they say, is evidence he will enforce the law, whatever his views.

The committee is currently led by Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vermont. A spokesman for Leahy said the panel received most of Ashcroft's writings, speeches and other requested documents over the weekend, but were still waiting for Ashcroft's correspondence with Bob Jones University, the tape of his 1999 speech there and his financial disclosure form.

Leahy suggested Sunday that a more moderate nominee to lead the Justice Department would have a better chance of confirmation.

"The concern, though, I have is that the attorney general has to make so many decisions that affect every one of us, that if you put in somebody who is seen as a rigid ideologue, then you don't have a credibility in this position," he told CNN.

A long record on controversial issues

In the Senate, Ashcroft pushed for a constitutional ban on abortion and signed a bill as Missouri's governor affirming bans on abortion in state-funded medical facilities .

He is a supporter of the death penalty, which Missouri resumed on his watch as governor. The state carried out seven executions while Ashcroft was governor, and he never commuted a death sentence.

Ashcroft also opposed race-based preferences for minorities. He co-sponsored a 1997 bill that would have prohibited preferential treatment in federal contracts, and employment on the basis of race or sex.

As Missouri's attorney general, he battled public-school desegregation orders resulting from years of federal lawsuits, and in later years, criticized the "appalling judicial activism" behind the orders.

Ashcroft lost his Senate re-election bid last year to Missouri Gov. Mel Carnahan, a longtime rival in state politics who died in a plane crash just weeks before the election. Missouri's new governor appointed Carnahan's widow, Jean Carnahan, to the seat.

On other issues, Ashcroft:

-- Opposed a ban on assault-style weapons and most other federal measures calling for tighter controls on firearms.

-- Voted against expanding a hate-crimes law to make it easier for federal prosecutors to try such cases. But as Missouri's governor, he signed a 1988 law raising penalties for offenses such as assault or vandalism that were motivated by racial or religious bias. He opposed extending hate-crimes protection to homosexuals, however.

-- Supported an unsuccessful attempt to strip the Federal Communications Commission of power to review pending mergers. The 1999 bill would have relaxed antitrust laws by shifting those powers to the Justice Department or Federal Trade Commission.

-- As Missouri's attorney general, however, he filed an antitrust suit against the National Organization for Women in 1978. The suit, which failed, accused the feminist organization of violating antitrust laws by organizing a boycott of the state and others that did not ratify the proposed Equal Rights Amendment to the Constitution.

But Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky, dismissed Democratic complaints that the former senator is too conservative.

"His views are more conservative than the majority of the people in the Senate," McConnell said on NBC's "Meet the Press." "But Al Gore didn't win the election. I mean, what did they expect to be appointed, a liberal?"

CNN Correspondents Bob Franken and Jonathan Karl, The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.