Canton Repository

May 25, 2005

Showdown looms despite filibuster compromise

By GEORGE E. CONDON JR.
Copley News Service

WASHINGTON — Neither the Senate nor any of its members emerged unscathed from the corrosive battle over President Bush’s judicial appointments. But the unusual compromise forced on the leadership and the White House by a small bipartisan band of senators allowed the Senate to step back from the precipice and provided a rare and welcome respite from what has become a poisonous atmosphere in Washington.

In the wake of the announced compromise, though, activists on both sides are being very cautious to assess winners and losers, warning that this deal could collapse very quickly when the battle escalates to the Supreme Court.

“This kicks the can down the road, but we’re going to come across the can again pretty quickly,” said veteran non-partisan analyst Stuart Rothenberg. “It gives the parties more rope, and now they can decide when they want to hang each other. But it doesn’t address the ultimate problems.”

Rothenberg cautioned against reading too much into the cease-fire hammered out at the eleventh hour by seven Democrats and seven Republican senators. “I’m not sure we’re at halftime yet in this fight,” he said. “In basketball, you can be beating a team by 20 points at halftime and at the end of the game you lose.”

There are far too many questions still unanswered for any certainty as to the outcome of this contest. How aggressively will the White House push judicial nominees not covered in the agreement? What happens when Democrats mount filibusters? Will the president heed the call to consult with key senators before making appointments? And, most important, what happens when there is a Supreme Court vacancy?

No one knows how the 14 compromising senators will react to events or to the criticism they are getting from ideological activists in their parties.

The group is hard to categorize. Some are centrists, while others are reliable liberals or conservatives; some are longtime party mavericks, while others are veteran party leaders. All that united them was a desire to spare the Senate a bloody and precedent-breaking fight over the use of filibusters to block votes on judicial nominations.

Because of them, the only sure winner in the short-term is the institution of the Senate itself. As more newcomers entered the body from the House of Representatives, many of them wanted to remake it in the image of the House, where the rights of the minority are almost non-existent. Many veteran senators did not want to risk that.

With 55 Republican senators and Vice President Dick Cheney standing by to break any tie in the GOP favor, most Republicans were cautiously confident they would prevail if the Senate voted what had become known as the nuclear option of banning judicial filibusters.

“But at what cost?” asked Republican pollster Whit Ayres, who is close to Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist of Tennessee. “We don’t fully know the answer to that question, but we know there would have been a cost.”

The seven Republicans who signed the compromise were not willing to find out, many of them fearing a final breakdown in Senate decorum with dire ramifications for lawmaking.

But other Republicans — particularly the conservatives who have waged this battle with such ferocity — believe victory was snatched from them and were much more glum about the outcome.

“Conservative activists, the shock troops of the party, are upset with this deal because they don’t trust the Democrats and because Bill Frist could not deliver the elimination of the filibuster for judges,” said Keith Appell, a longtime strategist in conservative causes. “These activists are feeling betrayed.”

Charlie Black, a veteran of almost every major conservative campaign going back to Ronald Reagan’s battles, acknowledged the disappointment but said Frist might not have had the votes.

“Most people on our side thought it would have been neater to go ahead and establish the rule,” he said. “But if you don’t have the votes, you don’t have the votes.”

In the wake of the compromise deal, increased attention was focused on Republican senators who are thinking of running for president. Frist had the most at stake. Now, he faces criticism that he was a majority leader who could not deliver a majority. But most activists were giving him a pass Tuesday, preferring instead to focus their fire on Arizona Sen. John McCain, a prime mover in the deal.

“Conservatives who are unhappy with this compromise are going to blame McCain, not Frist,” said Richard Land, president of the 16.3-million-member Southern Baptist Convention. Land praised Frist’s refusal to compromise.

McCain reinforced his reputation as a pragmatic, independent centrist — a plus with most voters. But to conservative activists, he definitely hurt himself.

A winner to those activists was Virginia Sen. George Allen, one of the most outspoken critics of the deal.

“Allen is able to say we shouldn’t compromise on principle and... anything short of that is a sellout and that’s a pretty good political position to be in if you’re running for the Republican nomination,” said Rothenberg.

On the Democratic side, they were able to stave off what looked to be certain defeat. But any celebrations are muted. The filibuster survives; but nominees they condemned as “extremists” are now going to be confirmed to lifetime judgeships. That is not much of a “victory.”