Senate compromise prevents showdown on filibusters
- May 13, 2005 -
Seven senators from each party reached an agreement May 23 that prevented the Republicans from potentially changing the Senate’s rules to break filibusters over judicial nominees.
As a result, three of President Bush’s appeals court selections—Janice Rogers Brown to the District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals, Priscilla Owen to the Fifth Circuit and William Pryor to the 11^th^ Circuit—will no longer be filibustered by the seven Democrats involved in the compromise. The Democrats, however, made no commitment on other nominees, reserving the right to filibuster in “extraordinary circumstances,” which were not defined.
The Republicans in the agreement committed not to support an attempt to change the rule requiring 60 votes to end a judicial filibuster. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist of Tennessee had set May 24 as the date when such a rule change would be attempted if the Democrats continued to filibuster Owen.
In the first vote since the compromise, the Senate confirmed Owen May 25 by 56-43.
The agreement by the 14 senators “is the surest indication that Majority Leader Bill Frist had the 50 votes to exercise the constitutional option and end filibusters for judicial nominees,” said Richard Land, president of the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission. “There used to be an old saying in Washington that ‘Republicans had raised snagging defeat from the jaws of victory to an art form.’ Alas, the seven Republicans who signed this deal have proven that this peculiarly Republican exercise is still alive and well.
“At least justice has been done in that three remarkably deserving and qualified American jurists—judges Owen, Brown and Pryor—will be confirmed as appellate federal judges.
“Whether this compromise is a serious defeat in the move toward a more conservative judiciary will be tested in coming months when we see if a majority of President Bush’s nominees gets an up-or-down vote and if the filibuster is rarely, if ever, used,” Land said. “If that is not the case, then Senator John McCain will bear the major share of the responsibility for frustrating tens of millions of American voters who voted for President Bush at least in part because he promised to nominate judges in the Thomas-Scalia mold.”
McCain, a Republican from Arizona, was a leader in the compromise effort.
“I am extremely fearful that this so-called compromise will break down over the strain of one or more Supreme Court nominations in the near term,” Land said.
“Majority Leader Frist had the courage to challenge the status quo and hold the senators’ feet to the fire. Had it not been for Senator Frist’s steadfast leadership, we would still not have confirmation votes on Owen, Brown and Pryor. Conservatives who are unhappy with this compromise are going to blame McCain, not Frist.”
Land and Barrett Duke, the ERLC’s vice president for public policy and research, signed onto a May 9 letter from the National Coalition to End Judicial Filibusters to GOP senators urging them to act to end the judicial filibusters “well before a Supreme Court vacancy should occur.”
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