NO Day — Nuclear Option Day — is almost upon the U.S. Senate.
And now the question becomes: does the GOP have the votes to ban the filibuster for judicial nominees and overcome stiff Democratic resistance? Or are there some Republicans who will join with the Democrats on this highly controversial issue?
According to the AP, Majority Leader Bill Frist’s effort to jettison filibusters over judicial nominees may be dependent on what some of the 7 undecided GOP Senators decide:
Seven Republican senators will determine the outcome of a showdown this week between the president and Congress and a minority within it over who is going to shape the federal courts.
Barring any unforeseen developments, these are the lawmakers in the make-or-break position when it comes to deciding whether to allow a Senate minority to block a president’s nominees for the federal bench.
The senators are Susan Collins of Maine, Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, John Warner of Virginia, Mike DeWine of Ohio, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and John Sununu of New Hampshire.
At issue is an effort by Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist to ban judicial filibusters. The Senate’s Democratic leader, Harry Reid of Nevada, wants the ability to block nominees for the Supreme Court and lower courts whom his party views as outside the legal mainstream.
The seven Republicans have not committed publicly to supporting either Senate leader.
All 44 Senate Democrats, joined by independent Sen. Jim Jeffords of Vermont and three Republicans, have said they oppose curtailing a Senate minority’s ability to block the president’s judicial nominees with just 41 votes in the 100-member Senate.
Frist, R-Tenn., has 45 of the Senate’s 55 Republicans on his side.
During President Bush’s first term, Democrats succeeding in blocking 10 of his judicial picks. Both Bush and First are making the case now that it should take only a simple majority 51 votes, rather than 60 now for a nominee to win confirmation for a lifetime appointment to a federal appeals court or the Supreme Court.
For Democrats to prevail, they need the support of three of the seven undecided Republicans. Frist needs five votes from five of those Republicans so Vice President Dick Cheney could have the chance to break a tie in favor of Bush’s position.
Frist said Friday he will bring up the first of the blocked nominees Texas judge Priscilla Owen and California judge Janice Rogers Brown this week.
So now you get down to sheer numbers. And then there’s another issue: the seemingly undecided GOPers have been under a lot of private and public pressure to go with the prevelent party line. Is it a slam-dunk certainty that this kind of pressure works? Apparently not:
Liberals and conservatives are focusing on Warner and other undecided Republicans through telephone calls, Internet campaigns and television advertisements.
Conservative groups such as Progress for America and Focus on the Family have spent millions of dollars on ads since mid-April in Alaska and elsewhere trying to persuade undecided Republican senators to support Frist.
Murkowski said those efforts have backfired with her.
“I was very offended at the tone,” Murkowski said. “But they’ve continued, and it’s been kind of interesting. I’ve probably gotten more positive feedback for my position, which Alaskans consider to be very thoughtful, very deliberate, about what is happening here in the Senate.”
So what’s going on? There are all kinds of possibilities:
- Frist knows he has the votes and is pressing for this now. The full Senate vote on the nomination of John Bolton would likely come after that — another polarizing vote.
- Frist is under pressure by come conservative and social conservative groups to bring it to a vote and feels he has to press it now. Part of the reason would be to get the machinery in place to ensure that Supreme Court nominees are filled by conservatives without the serious threat of a filibuster hanging over them.
- Frist doesn’t know he has the votes and may not have them but feels he has to act on it so he’s given credit for having gone to the mat on this issue.
There are two interesting interpretations of what’s going on from two political blogs, a conservative one and a liberal one — both highly respected since they’re written by people who know and understand politics.
Chris Bowers from the Democratic blog My DD writes in a post titled “Frist Doesn’t Have The Votes”:
Then again, of course Frist does not have the votes, otherwise he would have already held the vote. …I am not saying that this issue is unimportant, but we should remain aware that this is not something voters care about. Whoever “wins” this fight will win on their own, without much fanfare, and with no real electoral implications (except, of course, in the Republican Presidential primaries). This story is purely for the bases, purely for the hyper-engaged. We fight it only because we feel it is the right thing to do.
That is an interesting reminder: the vast majority of Americans probably won’t vote for or against the GOP based on what happens with the filibuster. It’s a question of motivating the bases.
But could it also help expand the bases of each respective party? Emotions are running high.
Meanwhile, conservative blogger Steven Taylor, a professional political scientist, analyzes the wavering Senators and writes:” WaPo rightly calls all of this ‘brinksmanship’–it strikes me that since it is unclear that Frist has the votes, that he is trying to force the Democrats’ hand on a favorable compromise..”
Another interesting thought: could all of this be an elaborate political ballet on the part of the Demmie and GOPer leadership to eventually reach a compromise that pulls the Senate back from the brink? Remember that if this doesn’t go through, conservative Republicans will be bitter. If this does go through, Democrats will be angry and start to find ways to insist that all rules and regulations they can exercise will be used in a way to remind the GOP majority that they’re there and won’t be steamrolled.
On the other hand, there are some Republicans who don’t want any kind of a compromise. And some Democrats who don’t want it, either. And Frist has been clear that he doesn’t intend to compromise on it. Minority Leader Harry Reid has been a bit more vague. So the likelihood is for a showdown — but there could be some suspense in the outcome yet. Or will there be?
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.