Frist, Hagel face filibuster fallout in 2008

WASHINGTON - Conservative leaders urged Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist Monday to end the long-running stalemate over President Bush’s judicial nominees by putting to a vote this week a proposed change in Senate rules that would allow a simple majority to halt a filibuster of a nominee.

And they warned potential 2008 Republican presidential hopeful Sen. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska that his party’s primary voters would reject him if he did not support the rules change.

Underscoring the stakes, both now and for 2008, former Frist aide Manuel Miranda, one of the leaders of the anti-filibuster coalition, said Frist “now has a long-awaited appointment with his destiny.”

Like Hagel, Frist is a potential GOP presidential contender in 2008. 

Does Frist have the votes?
The biggest question for Frist is whether he has the 51 votes he needs to make the filibuster rules change.

Asked Monday whether Frist has the votes to pass his proposed rule change, Sen. Edward Kennedy, D- Mass said, “I think that at this time there are probably three, maybe four senators that haven’t indicated where they are on this vote. But I don’t underestimate the power of this executive and the administration in trying to win the last couple of votes. As we have seen on vote after vote in the United States Senate, when the administration wants to lean hard on members, they have been very, very effective.”

Among the uncommitted Republicans are Hagel, Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, and Sen. John Warner of Virginia.

Three Republicans, Sen. Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island, Sen. John McCain of Arizona, and Sen. Olympia Snowe of Maine, have indicated they would vote against the proposed rules change

Hagel made equivocal statements Sunday that kept observers guessing. On the one hand, Hagel said, “you can’t give up a minority rights tool in the interest of the country, like the filibuster.”

But he added, “The other part of this, which I also believe strongly, is that presidents deserve votes on their nominees.”

Hagel did not explain how presidents could get votes on their nominees if filibusters blocked those nominees from ever coming to a vote.

Frist’s proposed change to the filibuster rule applies only to nominations, not to legislation.

“Sen. Hagel has been spending a lot of time in New Hampshire lately,” noted Wendy Long, chief counsel to the Judicial Confirmation Network and a former law clerk to Justice Clarence Thomas. “I grew up in New Hampshire and I’ll tell you something: somebody who, on this issue, is on the side of (liberal groups) Moveon.org and People for the American Way is not going to fare very well in the New Hampshire Republican primary. They are going to be laughed across the border to Vermont.”

Hagel spent two days in New Hampshire last week, speaking to Republican groups and on college campuses. New Hampshire holds its first-in-the-nation presidential primary in January 2008.

Jan LaRue, chief counsel to the Concerned Women for America, said, “Sen. Hagel needs to come to grips with the fact that Frist has tried to compromise and has been rejected.”

While Bush and other Republicans, marked on Monday the four-year anniversary of Bush’s May 9, 2001 nomination of Texas Supreme Court Justice Priscilla Owen to serve on the federal appeals court, Kennedy appeared at a Capitol press briefing to vow her nomination would never come to a vote.

On four separate occasions in 2003 , Senate Democrats blocked up-or-down votes on her nomination.

“She shouldn’t be confirmed regardless of what rules are in effect,” Kennedy declared. He charged that her rulings proved that she was unsympathetic to consumers who sued large companies.

“Her record shows that she would roll back basic rights and repudiate much of this country’s hard-won progress toward equality and opportunity," he said. "She repeatedly rules against the most vulnerable members of our society.”

While urging his fellow senators to allow a confirmation vote on Owen, Sen. John Cornyn, R- Texas, sounded a note of hope that a confrontation with Democrats over judicial filibusters might somehow be avoided.

“It’s encouraging that we’re having this discussion go forward; as long as we’re talking we’re not fighting,” he said, adding that he expected a vote on the rules change “in the next few weeks.”

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