Bush demands vote on judges, pushing Senate GOP toward new filibuster rule

WASHINGTON — President Bush yesterday called for an immediate vote on two of his most-controversial judicial nominations, increasing pressure on Senate Republicans to consider a historic rule change that would make it easier for him, and future presidents, to reshape the federal bench, including the Supreme Court.

Bush issued a statement from Europe demanding an "up-or-down vote" on Priscilla Owen and Terrence Boyle for appellate-court seats. Despite a flurry of congressional negotiations yesterday, Senate Republicans appear increasingly likely to exercise the "nuclear option" of changing Senate rules to prevent Democrats from filibustering Bush's judicial nominees.

The president, who initiated the conflict by renominating judges whom Democrats had blocked during his first term and demanding new votes this year, is essentially guaranteeing a showdown that is as much about the power of the presidency as about Democratic obstinacy, according to numerous government scholars. The result could be a more powerful White House, a weakened Congress and the possible erosion, if not end, of the most powerful tool available to the minority party, they said.

"This is being done to ... help a president achieve what he wants to achieve," said former Rep. Mickey Edwards, R-Okla., now a scholar at the Aspen Institute. "It's a total disavowal of the basic framework of the system of government. It's much more efficient [for Bush], but our government was not designed to be efficient."

The filibuster allows a minority in the Senate to block almost any legislation as long as it can muster at least 40 votes. If the filibuster is eliminated for judicial nominations, Bush would enjoy greater latitude in filling vacancies on appellate courts.

With 55 Republicans in the Senate, Bush would win the right for up-or-down votes — and almost certainly secure approval of seven judges blocked by Democrats in the first term and renominated earlier this year, according to GOP and Democratic officials.

"It certainly has the potential to reduce the Senate's power vis-à-vis the president," said Carl Tobias, a University of Richmond law professor. "It's one less restraint."

The most far-reaching implication of the rules change could come this summer, if one or more Supreme Court justices retire.

Although Republicans say the rules change would apply only to votes on judges, Richard Pious, a political-science professor at Barnard College, said there would be nothing to prevent applying the precedent to non-judicial matters such as tax cuts or restructuring government programs. "Once you get the procedural method through, then if you have 50 votes and a vice president presiding, I think you can do it," he said.

Norman Ornstein, a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, agreed. "There is absolutely no doubt in my mind if they do this, sooner rather than later ... we will head down the slippery slope, probably first for executive nominations and then legislation," he said.

With a showdown building, Democrats and Republicans yesterday discussed compromise offers and counteroffers in hopes of defusing the conflict.

Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada and Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., urged their colleagues from the chamber's floor to lower tensions by moving ahead on nominees that Democrats oppose but have pledged not to filibuster.

Reid argued that Republicans, at the behest of the White House, are refusing to move on to less controversial nominees in an effort to make Democrats look obstructionist.

"The fact is that all, or almost all, senators want to avoid the crisis," Specter said.

A third senator, Democrat Ben Nelson of Nebraska, said he was working privately to round up six of his Democratic colleagues to join in a deal with six Republicans that would force both sides to stand down.

"I think that most of us feel that we've got to do something, and we ought to be able to put our minds together and come up with something," Nelson said on CNN's "Inside Politics."

Nelson said that under the compromise, the six Republicans would agree not to support a move to prevent use of the filibuster to block judicial nominees. Democrats would agree to allow floor votes on some or all of seven Bush nominees who were previously blocked.