WASHINGTON (ABP) — A week chock-full of dueling press conferences is the latest sign that the Senate's war over the judicial filibuster is escalating — and may end with a “nuclear” detonation.
As senators returned from a recess May 9, Democrats and Republicans began marking the week with a series of press events. The television appearances, statements and news conferences were designed to call attention to arguments for and against Democrats' use of a Senate tradition to block a handful of President Bush's most controversial judicial nominees.
The Senate requires 60 votes to end debate and move to a final vote on any matter. Thus Democrats, though they are in the chamber's minority, have been able to block 10 Bush nominees to the federal bench because of concern about their viewpoints. Although the Senate has approved 208 of the president's other nominees, Republican leaders are threatening to use a parliamentary maneuver dubbed the “nuclear option” to take away Democrats' ability to filibuster any proposed judges.
Bush, traveling in Europe, released a statement May 9 marking the fourth anniversary of his first nominations to the federal bench. Two of those nominees — Priscilla Owen and Terrence Boyle — are among those who have been blocked by Democratic filibusters.
“Much more than enough time has passed for the Senate to consider these nominations. The Senate should give these extraordinarily qualified nominees the up-or-down votes they deserve without further delay,” Bush said in the statement. “It is only fair that the Senate promptly consider judicial nominees on the floor, discuss and debate their qualifications, and then vote to confirm or not to confirm them. Nominees who have the support of a majority of the Senate should be confirmed.”
But Democrats and their allies argued just as vehemently that the filibuster is necessary to prevent the appointment of extremist judges.
“We are not going to give lifetime appointments to men and women who are going to reverse the important progress that has made America America,” said Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.), at a May 10 press conference organized by a coalition of civil-rights groups. Speakers at the event specifically criticized the legal records of Boyle and another filibustered Bush appointee, California Supreme Court Justice Janice Rogers Brown, on civil-rights issues.
Speakers specifically objected to the critique — offered by some opponents of the Democrats' tactics — that the filibuster has been used in the past to stymie civil-rights legislation, and thus is a tainted ploy.
Eleanor Holmes Norton, an African-American and the District of Columbia's non-voting delegate to the House of Representatives, said that should be an argument against doing away with the filibuster. “The rules of the Senate have never been violated in favor of our rights; we will not see them violated when our rights are at stake,” she said.
Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) has threatened to employ a rarely used parliamentary maneuver to do away with the filibuster on judicial nominees. Frist would get Vice President Dick Cheney, in his role as president of the Senate, to rule that the filibuster in such cases is unconstitutional. If the ruling is supported by only 50 senators, the filibuster could be done away with.
Sen. Trent Lott (R-Miss.) has dubbed such a move the “nuclear option,” since Democrats have threatened to protest such an action by bringing Senate business to a virtual halt. But some Republicans and their allies have lately taken to referring to it as the “constitutional option.”
While the vast majority, if not all, of the chamber's 44 Democrats and one left-leaning independent are expected to oppose the move, a handful of moderate Republicans may hold the key. They are reported to have serious misgivings about allowing Frist to go “nuclear.”
According to a May 10 report in the Capitol Hill newspaper Roll Call, Lott and Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) are working on a compromise that would allow up-or-down votes on the disputed lower-court nominees, while reserving Democrats the right to filibuster future nominees — including possible nominees to the Supreme Court — in extreme cases.
But some of the Republicans' most important constituents, such as conservative evangelical groups, may not approve such a compromise. Focus on the Family head James Dobson released a statement May 10 lambasting the idea of any agreement that would allow future filibusters of Bush's nominees.
“If the Republicans consent to this disaster, they'll not only be abandoning the men and women who put them in office, they'll be demonstrating that they do not deserve the leadership entrusted to them,” Dobson said. “It's past time to stop this nonsense. Win or lose, the Republican leadership must call for the constitutional-option vote, and do so without any more delay.”
If Frist does pull the trigger on the “nuclear” option, he is expected to do so before Congress' Memorial Day recess begins May 28.