Frist sets crucial vote on judge for Tuesday

A GOP senator sees hope
"There's still hope, we've made a lot of progress, but we're not done yet," said DeWine Thursday night as the bargaining ended. "You can see how a deal could be put together.... The ingredients are certainly there, but we're not there yet, and we may not ever get there. But we certainly want to get there."

With the likelihood that Bush will have an opportunity to fill one or more vacancies expected next month on the Supreme Court, the issue takes on even greater importance.

Chief Justice William Rehnquist, 80, is ailing with thyroid cancer. The oldest justice is John Paul Stevens, 85.

For most Republican senators the non-negotiable goal is a binding commitment by Senate Democrats to not use a filibuster to block a Supreme Court nominee.

DeWine said he wanted to reach an accord with Democrats so that both parties would stop using the filibuster. But that delaying tactic should remain on the shelf, he said, to be used only "in very extraordinary circumstances."

"If we are forced to go ahead and change the way the Senate operates, then that option of using the filibuster will be gone," he said. "I don't really think that is good.... We should have that option there in very extreme cases for the minority to be able to use a filibuster when the minority feels that it is needed."  

While the bipartisan group was meeting Thursday afternoon, a group of GOP freshman senators held a press conference to demand that they be allowed to vote on all judicial nominees and to not have any jettisoned as part of any bargain.

“Every nominee should receive an up-or-down vote, and there should be an agreement that Supreme Court nominees of the future are not threatened with a filibuster,” said Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C.

"We’re the freshest faces just off an election; we’ve got the most recent promises to people across the country," Burr said. "That was our promise: that we would come here to make sure that every nominee got an up or down vote. We didn’t promise to vote for them, but we promised to get them a vote.”

"We all deserve to have a vote on those nominees under our role of advice and consent in the Constitution,” argued Sen. David Vitter, R-La. “I don’t think 41 senators should be able to take that right and that role away from us, so it goes without saying that I don’t think 12 senators should be able to take it away from us.”

Any deal that allows some Bush appeals court nominees to be "thrown overboard" would be unacceptable to Frist, but if six Republicans went along with the Democrats on this, then Frist would be powerless to stop it.

Frist, whom some in Washington think has presidential ambitions, has placed his credibility at stake by arguing so strongly in favor of giving every judicial nominee an up-or-down vote.

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