Frist sets crucial vote on judge for Tuesday

WASHINGTON - Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist has scheduled a vote for Tuesday to bring an end to debate on appeals court nominee Priscilla Owen.

The vote has far larger implications than the fate of one nominee — it will likely determine what could be the most consequential battle of George Bush's presidency. At stake: Bush's ability to steer the courts in a more conservative direction.

On that vote — called a cloture motion in Senate parlance — the key will be how many Democrats decide to join the 55 Republican senators in voting for the motion. Under the rules of the Senate, it takes 60 senators to vote to end debate.

If Frist wins Tuesday's cloture vote, there would be no more than an additional 30 hours of debate permitted on Owen's nomination.

After that additional debate, the Senate would vote on the nomination itself. If Owen got a majority (51 votes, if all senators vote), her nomination would be confirmed.

The Senate has already spent three days this week debating her nomination and will spend part of Friday doing so.

If Frist does not win the cloture vote, he would seek a ruling of the presiding officer that further debate was dilatory. If the Senate sustained such a ruling by majority vote, then the filibuster-ending threshold would be lowered from 60 to 51.

Democrats' likely response
Democrats have warned that if the filibuster rule is changed, they will respond by using parliamentary devices to delay bills and to “wrest control of the agenda” from Republicans. Democrats would be able to bring to a crawl work on high-priority legislation such as an energy bill and asbestos litigation reform.

On the Senate floor Wednesday, Democratic Leader Harry Reid threw the first parliamentary monkey wrench — invoking the rarely-used Senate rule that prevents committees from meeting for more than two hours once the Senate has begun its day's proceedings.

Bush first nominated Texas Supreme Court Justice Owen to the federal bench on May 9, 2001, but Democrats defeated four attempts by Frist to bring her nomination to a vote.

Democrats have used filibuster threats to block up-or-down confirmation votes on 10 of Bush’s appeals court nominees, while 36 have been confirmed by the Senate.

A dozen Democratic and Republican senators continued Friday to discuss ways to avoid a showdown.

After negotiating for hours behind closed doors Thursday, the group, which includes Sen. John Warner, R- Va., Sen Robert Byrd, D-W.V., Sen Mike DeWine, R- Ohio and Sen. Ken Salazar, D- Colo., recessed their face-to-face talks. Senators leaving the evening session said that Monday afternoon would be the earliest they could reconvene and try to clinch a deal. That leaves the bargainers little time to spare.

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