The Judicial Filibuster in Focus

With many reports coming from Capitol Hill, there is still some uncertainty that Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist has the votes needed to change the Senate rule on filibusters and back a ruling from the chair that would determine that only a simply majority is needed to bring cloture on judicial nominees.
 
There is a likelihood all of this will be playing out in the Senate in the weeks ahead.  This is how the process will unfold.  When the judicial nominees, which have been filibustered in the past, are reported to the floor of the Senate in this new Congressional term, Sen. Frist will have the option to choose when (and which) nominees are brought to the floor for debate.
 
In the case that Sen. Frist feels confident that he has the votes needed to make the rules change he would then bring nominees such as Priscilla Owen and Janice Rogers Brown up for debate and that is likely to happen within the next two weeks.  After debate has concluded, a motion for a cloture vote is made and it will fall short of the 60 needed to bring cloture under the current filibuster rule.  After a period of three days, the majority leader would then make a point of order stating that only a simple majority is needed to bring cloture on nominees.  He would then ask the chair (Vice President Cheney) for a ruling who will agree with Frist.  At this point, the Democrats presumably would appeal the ruling from the chair and the Republicans would need a simply majority of 51 votes to table this appeal.  At that point the "constitutional option" or what's become known in the media as the "nuclear option" would be enacted.  There are several key questions about this process:  Does Sen. Frist have the 50 votes needed (remember Vice President Cheney would be the 51st vote in favor of rules change) to enact the constitutional option?  And when he does, will he wait until the last of the filibustered nominees is reported to the floor before he utilizes the constitutional option?  That is scheduled to occur at the end of April.
 
The focus on the filibuster will begin to intensify next week when the first of the filibustered nominees is brought up again.  Priscilla Owen is expected to be reported to the Senate floor on April 14th. 

The ACLJ produced a very comprehensive legal memo distributed to members of the Senate urging them to change the rules regarding the use of the judicial filibuster.  And, the ACLJ will intensify its efforts beginning on April 11th when it launches a nationwide campaign to enlist the support of Americans who want the Senate to act to eliminate the use of the judicial filibuster and give all judicial nominees an up-or-down vote on the Senate floor.

The fact is that the nominees who were filibustered last term and who will be reintroduced in the weeks ahead would have been confirmed without delay by a simple majority vote if their nomination had gone to the full Senate floor for consideration.