Senate talkathon over judicial nominees is sign of bitter split

By Seattle Times news services

	DENNIS COOK / AP Tom Daschle, D-S.D., holds up two fingers to illustrate that only 2 percent of President Bush's judicial nominees haven't been confirmed by the Senate. Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., is at right.
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As night turned to day and then night again, Republicans and Democrats took 30-minute turns in a peculiar duel where the weapons of choice were country-music lyrics, political biographies, charts and heaping helpings of scorn.

"Sanctimonious hypocrisy, partisan politics, double standards," Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, grumbled.

Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., scoffed at the claim by Democrats that they had so far thwarted only four of 172 judicial nominees. "It's like saying, 'We only hung four people without a trial,' " Kyl said.

At issue is Democrats' use of Senate filibuster rules to block a handful of judicial confirmation votes. While it takes only a simple majority of 51 to confirm a nominee, it takes 60 votes to overcome a filibuster, and the 51-member GOP majority has so far fallen short of that number.

"It's raw politics folks, nothing more, nothing less. There is a litmus test, and if (judges) don't meet that litmus test, they don't get a vote (by the Senate)." — Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho. "We are here to grind meat for the Republican right wing, so television networks like the fair and balanced Fox News Network can rail on for days and weeks about this 30-hour tribute to the Republican point of view." — Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill. "This is not the world's greatest deliberative body. It's the world's greatest Kabuki theater." — Sen. Evan Bayh, D-Ind. "There are 13 million hungry children in America tonight but Republicans don't have time to debate that." — Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass. "Winston Churchill once described a fanatic as someone who can't change his mind and won't change the subject. That's a perfect description of this situation." — Sen. Mark Dayton, D-Minn. "It's not good for our country. It's not good for our relationship. And it's not good for getting our work done. ... Let's stop this." — Sen. Trent Lott, R-Miss. "It seems to me we have our priorities all messed up here when we have 9 million people out of work." — Sen. Jon Corzine, D-N.J. "Filibustering nominations is obstruction in its most potent and virulent form. Even if a majority of senators stands ready to confirm, nomination filibusters are fatal." — Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn. "Show some guts. Stand up. Vote yes or vote no." — Sen. George Allen, R-Va.

Senate Republicans began their "Justice for Judges Marathon" at 6 p.m. Wednesday, trying to generate public anger over what they regard as a Democratic attempt to arbitrarily overturn the Constitution and more than 200 years of practice and custom.

At the 24-hour mark last night, Republicans said they would extend the debate hours past the planned midnight end. The idea is to go up until votes scheduled this morning aimed at ending debate on three appeals-court nominees who are opposed by Democrats. Republicans are unlikely to get the 60 votes needed to shut off debate on these nominees.

Some freshman Republicans, like Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Norm Coleman of Minnesota, said they had not had much chance to speak and asked for the extension. "I never dreamed that in a 30-hour debate you'd have to fight to get two minutes," Graham said.

Graham also threatened to sue to change the Senate rules if Republicans can't break the filibusters, which most senators agree won't happen.

Republicans insisted there was no precedent for refusing to allow votes on the president's judicial choices. Democrats said the GOP-led Senate was championing judges who do not represent U.S. mainstream views.

Democrats also pointed out that Republicans used similar tactics to block 63 of former President Clinton's judicial nominees, bottling them up in committee or through the intervention of one senator.

The talkathon was the culmination of an escalating two-year battle between Democrats and Republicans over Bush's nominees. It was really just another chapter in a decades-long fight between the parties over the ideological temperament of the federal bench.

These judicial battles are usually bitter and hard fought because the stakes are so high.

Federal judges sit on the bench for a lifetime, so the effect of nominations by a long-serving president can reverberate for decades.

A judge's decisions can reach into every avenue of U.S. life: from whom you may have sex with legally to whether you should be the captive customer of a monolithic telephone company.

The first overnight Senate session in a decade did little to close the partisan divide, with Democrats blocking attempts to bring nominees up for votes and Republicans stopping Democratic bills.

Bush was joined in the White House yesterday by three of his stalled nominees — judges Priscilla Owen, of Texas, and Carolyn Kuhl and Janice Rogers Brown, both of California — as he demanded that they get an up-or-down vote.

"I have told these three ladies I will stand with them to the bitter end because they're the absolute right pick for their respective positions," Bush said. "The senators who are playing politics with their nominations are acting shamefully."

But Democrats said they had a right to use Senate procedures to block judges they consider unfit to serve on the federal bench.

"The founders did not intend for the Senate to roll over and play dead whenever the president tells them to," said Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass.

And Senate Democratic leader Tom Daschle of South Dakota said it was regrettable that Bush had "politicized these nominations and raised the level of confrontation within the debate itself."

Democrats have used filibusters to block four Bush nominees. The four are Owen, Alabama Attorney General William Pryor, Mississippi Judge Charles Pickering and lawyer Miguel Estrada, who has since withdrawn his nomination.

Democrats are expected to use the 60-vote requirement today to stop confirmation of Brown and Kuhl.

Democrats also criticized Republicans for concentrating on finding jobs for four nominees while paying inadequate attention to the 3 million jobs lost since Bush took office.

Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., said, "This marathon is the type of political grandstanding that makes Americans scratch their heads and conclude that politicians just don't get it. We should be spending our time on the urgent needs facing our citizens in employment, health care and transportation."

The sideshows overshadowed much of the debate as Republicans brought in cots and coffee and invited conservative groups for hourly news conferences through the night. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., said he had gotten 53 minutes of sleep and then ran four miles on a treadmill.

Democrats brandished posters saying "168-4" to emphasize their confirmation record. Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., had a T-shirt saying, "We confirmed 98 percent of President Bush's judges" on the front, while the back said, "and all we got was this lousy T-shirt."

The floor battle was also a reflection of how much the relationship between the parties has deteriorated and how the fractiousness is making it harder to do the nation's business.

Spending bills that should have passed by the Oct. 1 start of the fiscal year are far behind schedule. Medicare, energy and legislation to tax Internet access are all snarled in partisan disputes. A planned recess just before Thanksgiving is slipping toward Christmas.

Material from The Associated Press, Gannett News Service, the Los Angeles Times and the Baltimore Sun is included in this report.

Copyright © 2003 The Seattle Times Company