{"id":3517,"date":"2005-02-09T10:30:17","date_gmt":"2005-02-09T15:30:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/3517.html"},"modified":"2005-02-09T10:30:17","modified_gmt":"2005-02-09T15:30:17","slug":"they-cant-go-nuclear-if-they-dont-have-the-votes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/they-cant-go-nuclear-if-they-dont-have-the-votes\/","title":{"rendered":"They can’t go ‘nuclear’ if they don’t have the votes"},"content":{"rendered":"

Bill Frist keeps talking tough about Senate Republicans pursuing the “nuclear option” over Bush’s judicial nominees, and Harry Reid keeps talking even tougher in response, going so far as to say he’s prepared “to go behind the pool hall<\/a> and see who wins this one.”<\/p>\n

But one wonders, with only 45 votes in the Senate, is Reid bluffing? He’s practically daring Frist to move forward with this scheme. What if he’s wrong?<\/p>\n

Looking at the Republican caucus, however, it seems Frist is the one who’s bluffing because he may simply lack the votes to pull it off. Sens. McCain, Hagel, Chafee, Snowe, and Collins — Republicans all — have indicated that they won’t support the “nuclear option.” About a month ago, Virginia’s John Warner indicated<\/a> he may not be on board with the scheme either.<\/p>\n

And now Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) seems more than a little wary<\/a> of the nuclear option as well.
\n<\/p>\n

The new Senate Judiciary Committee chairman favors more negotiations with Democrats over the so-called “nuclear option” Republicans could use to push President Bush’s judicial nominees through Democratic filibusters. <\/p>\n

“I’m trying to set the stage to get the job done without going to the nuclear option,” Sen. Arlen Specter, Pennsylvania Republican, said in a wide-ranging interview Friday with The Washington Times.<\/p>\n

He was asked if he would support the “nuclear option” — changing Senate rules so that executive nominees can’t be filibustered — if negotiations fail. <\/p>\n

“I’m not going to jump off that bridge until I come to it, and I hope I don’t come to it,” said Mr. Specter, sitting in his office on the first floor of the Capitol.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Granted, that’s not exactly a firm opinion in opposition to Frist’s plan, but, at a minimum, Specter doesn’t seem fond of the idea. One suspects Specter realizes that inter-party comity — one of his goals on the Judiciary Committee — will be utterly destroyed if the nuclear option passes. Given a choice, it seems Specter would prefer to stick with the status quo.<\/p>\n

Frist has hinted to colleagues that he’s ready to go nuclear fairly soon<\/a>, but without 51 votes, there will be no mushroom cloud.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bill Frist keeps talking tough about Senate Republicans pursuing the “nuclear option” over Bush’s judicial nominees, and Harry Reid keeps talking even tougher in response, going so far as to say he’s prepared “to go behind the pool hall and see who wins this one.” But one wonders, with only 45 votes in the Senate, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3517","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3517","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3517"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3517\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3517"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3517"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3517"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}