Opinion: Senate Democrats' generosity

Senate Democrats and Republicans are at an impasse over the future handling of judicial nominations and other issues that are holding up agreement on how to organize the Senate now that Democrats have majority control. Republican senators, who found themselves in the minority after Jim Jeffords bolted their party, are demanding privileges no minority party has ever before been granted, including a guarantee that every White House nominee for the U.S. Supreme Court will get a full Senate vote. Rather than bluster and posture, Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle has offered to allow the full Senate, which is split 50 to 49, to decide whether to grant such a guarantee. Daschle said he will vote against it.

This consideration is far more than Trent Lott, the former majority leader, ever granted Democrats. During the six years Republicans controlled the Senate while President Bill Clinton was in office, Republicans placed roadblocks of all sorts in the way of his judicial nominees. Some waited for years for a Senate confirmation hearing; others were never scheduled for a Judiciary Committee vote. Many of Clinton's nominees were highly regarded attorneys and judges, who were left flapping in the wind as the Republican leadership played "gotcha" politics. Lott and former Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, seemed to think it was their province to keep dozens of judicial seats vacant, holding up nominations for political and ideological reasons.

Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., the new Senate Judiciary Committee chairman, has promised not to follow these petty examples. He has agreed to treat the president's nominees with respect and to hold hearings, allowing nominees to rise or fall on their merits. But that promise isn't enough for Republicans. They want an unprecedented written guarantee that the president's Supreme Court nominees will get a floor vote, even if they are rejected by the Judiciary Committee.

Historically, every nominee for a vacancy on the U.S. Supreme Court has been sent to the Senate floor for a vote. Even the controversial Supreme Court nominations of Robert Bork, who was rejected by the Senate Judiciary Committee, and Clarence Thomas, whose nomination ended in a committee tie, still were given a full Senate vote. Changing these longstanding rules now makes it appear as though the Senate Judiciary Committee is being stripped of one of its most important duties: evaluating the fitness of candidates to our highest court. There is no legitimate reason for this other than to assure Republicans that they won't be treated in the same arbitrary fashion as they treated Democrats.

Republicans are also demanding an end to the anonymous "blue slip," a privilege that allows senators to secretly block any judicial nominees from their home state for any reason. Republicans made use of this privilege when they were in the majority, and clearly knowing the abuses, want to deny this kind of veto power to Democrats. The blue-slip veto should be abolished. But if it is to continue, the privilege should carry the requirement of public disclosure. Daschle has indicated that he may be amenable to this change. However, he has suggested he may ask the Judiciary Committee to make the decision instead of the full Senate.

So far, the new Senate leader has shown that he is willing to give Republicans what they rarely gave Democrats -- a fair shake.

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