Wednesday, May 18, 2005


A Likely Script for The 'Nuclear Option'
Here comes my 19th Nervous Breakdown...

The "nuclear option" will have a long fuse.

If all goes as planned, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) will rise after several days of debate beginning today over one of President Bush's judicial nominees and call for an end to Democrats' delaying tactics. The presiding officer will then rule in his favor.

Democrats will protest the ruling and ask for a vote to overturn it. The Republican leader will seek to table that appeal. If Frist and the GOP majority prevail, a long tradition of filibustering will be narrowed and a new precedent will be set allowing the Republicans to force a vote on a nomination with a simple majority instead of three-fifths of the Senate.

Republicans hold 55 of the seats in the chamber, and until now they have needed 60 votes to end debate and force a vote. But Republicans believe they have figured out how to use the chamber's rules so that only a simple majority -- 51 votes -- is required to force an up-or-down vote.

To get there, Republicans will have to evade a requirement that they have a two-thirds vote -- 67 of 100 senators -- to change the chamber's rules. Republicans will argue that they are attempting to set a precedent, not change the Senate rules, to disallow the use of filibusters as a delaying tactic on judicial nominations. And by doing so, they say, they are returning to a more traditional concept of majority rule.

" 'Advise and consent' does not say, 'A supermajority is required,' " Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Tex.) said at a news conference yesterday in front of a backdrop that had a logo repeating "Fair Up or Down Vote" 72 times.

But Democrats contend that the Republicans are essentially breaking the rules to change the rules. "If there were ever an example of an abuse of power, this is it," said Senate Minority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.). "The filibuster is the last check we have against the abuse of power in Washington."

The rule change Frist is seeking to bar the use of the filibuster for judicial nominations has been dubbed the "nuclear option" because of its potential to disrupt the Senate and shatter what little comity remains between Republicans and Democrats.

If this shit goes down, all I can hope for is the Democrats to regain the majority someday and use this precedent to dance on some Republican heads. Time to get nasty, boys and girls.