Earlier this week, Harry Reid offered Bill Frist a sweet deal: confirmation votes on some of Bush’s worst judicial nominees in exchange for taking the nuclear option off the table. The GOP would get what they want most (more judges on the bench); the Dems would get what they already have (the right to filibuster). Frist turned it down.
Yesterday, however, the Senate Majority Leader claimed to have a “compromise” of his own.
Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist offered a compromise yesterday in the long-running impasse over federal judges. His Democratic counterpart immediately labeled it “a big wet kiss to the far right,” and several liberal groups were even less kind. […]
In a Senate floor speech, Frist (R-Tenn.) offered to allow senators to debate appellate court nominees for 100 hours before voting to confirm or reject them. The plan would eliminate the right to continually debate, or filibuster, judicial nominees. It takes 60 votes in the 100-member Senate to stop filibusters.
“This would provide more than enough time for every senator to speak on a nominee while guaranteeing that nominee the courtesy of a vote,” Frist said. His plan also would prohibit senators from bottling up judicial nominees in committee, a tactic he acknowledged both parties have used over the years.
Follow that? Frist will let Dems talk about how awful the would-be judges are — in fact, he’ll let them do so for a few days — and then Republicans will put them on the federal bench for life. And, of course, the filibuster rule will be obliterated.
In what fantasy land is this a “compromise”? Perhaps in the same one where Bill Frist is a capable Majority Leader.