There was relative peace on the Hill over judicial nominees after Bush and Daschle struck a deal over 25 jurists a couple of months ago. The peace was intentionally broken yesterday and it looks like tensions are about to get considerably worse.
Democrats yesterday blocked the appeals court nomination of former Interior Department solicitor William G. Myers III, rekindling the Senate’s bitter struggle over President Bush’s judicial choices just before the two parties’ national conventions.
The vote on Myers, who was accused by Democrats of hostility to environmental causes, was 53 to 44, seven short of the 60 needed to force action on his nomination to the San Francisco-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit. He was the seventh Bush choice for the federal bench to be stopped by a Democratic filibuster.
Senate Republicans knew Dems were going to filibuster Myers’ nomination, which is exactly why they brought this to the floor. They don’t want to govern; they want to kvetch about not governing (a common problem with modern-day conservatives).
The reality is the GOP has very little to complain about. The Senate has confirmed 198 of Bush’s judicial nominations in less than four years — more than Reagan and Bush père filled in their entire first terms, and nearly identical to the number from Clinton’s first four years. The vacancy rate on the federal bench now stands at about five percent, the lowest it’s been in 14 years. A Republican president is stacking the courts with conservative judges, just like the GOP wanted.
The Senate is even ignoring the chamber’s “Thurmond Rule,” which is supposed to prohibit votes on judges after July 1 in an election year.
And despite all their success in getting nearly everything they want, Senate Republicans are still planning to move ahead on the rumored “nuclear option” — unilateral change to the chamber’s filibuster rules.
Conservatives and members of the Senate Republican leadership say that Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) is committed to using a controversial procedural tactic that would rewrite the chamber’s filibuster rule.
While Frist said he was actively considering changing the Senate rules several months ago, it now appears that the majority leader is on board with an effort by leading conservative senators to execute the tactic, which would prohibit lawmakers from filibustering judicial nominees.
It’s called the “nuclear option” because Dems have warned the GOP that this move would constitute a declaration of all-out war and a freeze in partisan relations that some compare to a nuclear winter.
Frist, at least initially, seemed hesitant to go along with such a radical scheme. And yet, perhaps embarrassed by a series of humiliations, Frist now seems ready to make the partisan atmosphere in the Senate far more toxic than it already is.
Of course, the driving force behind the effort is Rick “Man on Dog” Santorum (R-Pa.)…
“We’re working on it,” Santorum said. “We need the votes to do it. September is the best time to do it. This is about the future, and it’s not about one president or another” being in charge next year.
…and a powerful group of GOP insiders who have been plotting behind the scenes.
About a month ago, a group of prominent conservatives including former Reagan Attorney General Edwin Meese, former Bush White House counsel C. Boyden Gray, Federalist Society legal expert Leonard Leo, Heritage Foundation scholar Todd Gaziano, and others met to discuss the plight of blocked judges.
Among other topics, the discussion focused on the need for Frist to change the Senate rules or pursue other procedural tactics that would end the Democratic filibuster of judges.
“We do want a commitment from the leadership to get it done,” said Gaziano, who declined to comment on the details of the discussion or reveal the other participants. “We want a commitment from [the leadership] that they’ll get results and not that they’ll just try, that they’ll actually get results in ending the filibuster.”
But as has often been the case of late, the question now becomes whether there are enough Republicans to go along with such a drastic move.
Currently, Republican leaders do not have enough support within their own caucus to support a rules change issued from the chair with a simple majority.
“There are those in the Republican [conference] who would not do that. They think it violates the comity of the Senate,” said Richard Lessner, executive director of the American Conservative Union.
We can only hope that’s accurate. Stay tuned.