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Monday, Oct 13, 2008
The "Group of 14" moderates defuse the nuclear option, but who really wins and loses in the filibuster compromise? And how close are we to the next showdown?
May 24, 2005 | Rejecting the plans of their leaders and the demands of the religious right, seven Republican senators joined seven Democrats Monday night in a last-minute agreement to avert the nuclear option and preserve, at least in theory, the Democrats' right to filibuster future judicial nominees. The war over judicial nominees isn't over; it may well explode again this summer, when George W. Bush will almost certainly have a chance to nominate a Supreme Court justice. But Round 1 is done, and it goes to Senate tradition, the storied but seldom seen collegiality among senators -- and to the Democrats.
At a press conference just after the deal was announced, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid -- who had repeatedly begged "responsible Republicans" to work with Democrats on a compromise -- said the agreement was "really good news for every American." Reid noted that he'd proposed similar deals to Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist over the last few weeks, but that the Republican leader had rejected them each time.
Frist himself tried to put the best face on things Monday night. Just a few hours after declaring that senators had a "constitutional responsibility" to provide up-or-down floor votes for every judge the president nominates, Frist struggled to explain how an agreement that will deny floor votes to two long-stalled Bush nominees might be spun as a victory for the Republican leadership. It didn't work, and Frist seemed to know it. After a brief floor speech and a hand-shaking photo op with Harry Reid, Frist all but raced out of the Capitol as he said, over and over, "Let's move forward." As Frist stepped outside and toward a waiting car, his press secretary, Amy Call, physically held a Capitol door closed to keep reporters from following him.
Asked whether Frist was going to have trouble with his base -- the evangelical Christians he'd been courting with an eye on the 2008 presidential campaign -- Call argued that it was Reid, not Frist, who was pandering to his base: "There should be some parity here in how we compare who's tied to what," she said. "That's all I'm saying."
It's true that no one knows for sure yet how either party's base will respond. Call pointed to the fact that, before the deal was reached Monday night, Reid was scheduled to appear in live TV spots paid for by liberal groups opposed to Bush's nominees. While those groups may not be thrilled that the deal struck Monday will allow floor votes on three Bush nominees many of them opposed -- Priscilla Owen, Janice Rogers Brown and William Pryor -- they can take comfort in the fact that the Democrats will remain free to filibuster two others, William Myers and Henry Saad, as well as future nominees when "extraordinary circumstances" arise.
If you were confused about which side won, it helped to look at who was angry at the deal. Focus on the Family's James Dobson called it "a complete betrayal," while Eli Pariser of MoveOn claimed victory. "President Bush, Bill Frist and the radical right-wing of the Republican Party have failed in their attempt at seizing absolute power and the 'nuclear option' is off the table," Pariser said in a statement. "Our members fought hard to preserve the filibuster, which will now live to see another day. The only way the 'nuclear option' comes back is if the Republicans break their agreement."
One source of lingering political confusion over that "agreement" comes from the fact that no one knows exactly what "extraordinary circumstances" means. The written agreement reached by the 14 senators says that each signatory must use "his or her own discretion and judgment in determining whether such circumstances exist." Ben Nelson, the Nebraska Democrat who, together with Republican John McCain, led the negotiations, told Salon that Myers and Saad could be seen as paradigm cases for judges whose nominations would have amounted to "extraordinary circumstances." But no one knows for certain how the standard will be applied. Republicans who signed that agreement told Salon that they never discussed particular judges -- either current nominees or ones Bush might name in the future -- in trying to define what "extraordinary circumstances" means.
The definition is critical. If the Republicans who signed off on the agreement -- McCain, John Warner, Olympia Snowe, Susan Collins, Mike DeWine, Lincoln Chafee and Lindsey Graham -- believe that the Democratic signatories are filibustering future nominees who don't meet the "extraordinary circumstances" standard, they are free to push once again for the nuclear option. Frist warned that he'd be monitoring the agreement for "bad faith" and "bad behavior," and he made it clear that he'd be willing to push the Senate to the nuclear precipice once again if he saw signs of either.
Several of the Republicans who signed the deal echoed Frist's warnings. Ohio Sen. Mike DeWine stressed that, if the circumstances warrant, Republicans "reserve the right to do what we could have done" and invoke the nuclear option. One of the Democratic signatories, Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, seemed to acknowledge the fragile nature of the agreement, saying: "What we have come to is a pause, a hope, a chance that we can pass this difficult point."
For his part, Reid said he was optimistic that the agreement would keep the right to the filibuster alive, at least through the end of this Congress. Asked whether the parties might be right back to the edge once Bush nominates a replacement for the ailing Chief Justice William Rehnquist, Reid said that Senate Democrats didn't intend to "pick a fight" with Bush, but that Bush shouldn't "pick a fight with us, either."
Susan Collins and other senators involved in the deal suggested Monday night that it was never really in doubt -- that too many senators were too afraid of what the nuclear option would bring. Democrats were afraid it would destroy the Senate's tradition as a "cooling saucer," the place where debate outruns passions and minority views can moderate majority desires. Republicans feared that they might someday live to reap what they sowed, and that in the meantime Democrats could make their lives difficult by using Senate rules to slow legislation in the Senate to an agonizingly difficult pace.
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