GOP prepares for battle over judicial nominations

WASHINGTON - In a year when congressional Republicans have piled up a string of victories on issues from tax cuts to war in Iraq, Democrats can point to one triumph - a filibuster against four of President Bush's judicial nominees.

Now, with the presidential race hitting stride and the number of delayed nominees sure to rise, frustrated Senate Republicans say they are finally ready to act, perhaps explosively.

This week, Republicans have scheduled 30 hours of continuous debate on judges to begin Wednesday afternoon, producing a rare all-night Senate session. Frequent attempts to force votes will punctuate the barrage of speeches, and both sides threaten to dig deep into their bags of parliamentary tricks.

Friday will bring cloture votes on Texas Supreme Court Justice Priscilla Owen, whose nomination has been delayed for seven months, and votes on two new nominees likely to be met with additional filibusters.

Democrats say the GOP plan is more show than showdown, saying they helped approve 168 Bush-nominated judges while delaying a handful of nominees.

Republicans say this is the first time in the nation's history that filibusters have been used to block votes on federal court nominees.

"It can't be tolerated. It won't be tolerated," said Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn.

Republicans say they are ready for all-out war.

Underlining the rising stakes, if not Republican wrath, is growing talk of limiting the filibuster, one of the Senate's most-cherished tactics, so Bush can nominate judges without effective opposition.

The strategy is so divisive that Capitol insiders call it the "nuclear option."

"It would cause a volcano in the Senate. It would destroy the remaining vestiges of bipartisanship necessary to running the Senate," said Larry Sabato, a leading authority on Congress and director of the University of Virginia Center for Politics.

Under current rules, the 51 Republican senators set the chamber's agenda but need Democrats to move legislation and nominees because it takes 60 votes to end debate. Without nine crossover Democrats, the debate never officially ends. But with Republicans unable to deliver on Bush's full slate of federal judges, influential U.S. Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, has become a vocal proponent of banning filibusters on judicial nominees. It's the only way "we can force a change here," he said.

For now, Frist will play by the existing rules.

"We're not doing this just for show. We're doing it to try to produce votes during that period of time, in the wee hours of the morning if necessary, to get votes on these nominees," said Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Penn., the head of the Republican Conference.

Much of this week's debate will focus on the U.S. Constitution.

Hatch and Cornyn say the Democrats' filibuster violates the Constitution by requiring 60 votes to approve certain federal judges, instead of the simple majority set out by the framers.

Constitutional experts were of mixed opinion during Judiciary Committee testimony last May.

The Constitution gives the Senate the responsibility to advise and consent to the president's judicial choices - words that give the legislative branch and president equal roles in the process, said Marcia Greenberger of the National Women's Law Center.

But Chapman University law professor John Eastman disagreed, saying the Constitution gives the president the primary role in choosing nominees while limiting the Senate's function. In addition, "advice and consent" refers to the entire Senate, not a minority faction, he said.

Without clear constitutional direction, Sabato sees peril for both parties.

"I think the Democrats probably have picked too many. You can filibuster two or three or four. They're clearly going beyond that," he said. "They're going to look obstructionist. They're counting on people not paying attention, and I don't think they can count on that. We're heading into an election year."

- Information from the Washington Post and the Austin American-Statesman was used in this report.

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