"Nelson is negotiating with Sen. Trent Lott (R-Miss.), chairman of the Rules Committee, to reach a bipartisan compromise to end the impasse between Republicans and Democrats over the judicial filibuster.I think we can be sure that Reid will not support any sort of compromise. The Democratic party is too beholden to extremist groups whose only way to advance their agenda is via the courts. Why only the courts? Because a majority of Americans would never support their cause.
Nelson has suggested to Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) and his own party’s leadership a proposal that would automatically discharge judicial nominees from the Judiciary Committee after a certain amount of time if the panel failed to vote on them. Under Nelson’s proposal, after another set period any senator could then call nominees discharged from committee to the floor for a confirmation vote. The proposal would be implemented as a permanent change to Senate rules.
Lott said yesterday that he would have no problem supporting such a compromise but that it’s unlikely that Democratic leader Harry Reid (Nev.) would."
The article goes on:
Sen. Kent Conrad (D), who represents North Dakota, where Bush enjoyed a double-digit margin of victory last year, said that he would “prefer not to have these battles” over nominees, adding that for red-state Democrats the issue is “certainly more sensitive than for people from other states.”This is a very very important point. Americans do not like obstructionism at all. And you can be sure, especially in red states, that there will be a backlash. Reid and his buddies have threatend to shut down the senate if the "nuclear option" is used. This part confuses me, shutting down the senate has been a disastrous political move in the past. How do the democrats think they are going to get away with it? Reading further reveals their strategy:
Sen. Tim Johnson (D-S.D.) said he also would not support Democrats’ blocking certain big-ticket legislative items not related to funding government or overseas troops.Ok first of all no President consults with the opposition party about his judicial nominees. This is a made up problem to garner sympathy in the press. It's a classic Democratic strategy that I like to call "Aggressive Victimhood". They will do something unprecedented, like fillibustering judicial nominees, and upon encountering resistence behave as if they are the ones being victimized. It's actually the Republicans who are the bad guys here, don't you see? We are trying to force radical judges on them that are "far outside the mainstream"(read disagree with leftist rhetoric). And they will do anything to keep the "integrity of the system" alive.
“Clearly I don’t want to see complete gridlock in the Senate,” he said. “I’ve never heard Reid say that he would shut down the Senate.”
Johnson added that he did not worry about supporting the filibuster of controversial judicial nominees because “South Dakotans want to see more bipartisanship” and the president has not consulted with Democrats on his selections for the federal bench.
Part of me hopes for a compromise like the one Nelson suggests. The other part of me hopes that we use the nuclear option and let them try to shut the government down. Either way we really really need judges who aren't liberal activists and who won't legislate from the bench.
