McCain, Specter rip
filibuster ban plan
BY JAMES GORDON MEEK
DAILY NEWS WASHINGTON BUREAU
WASHINGTON - Two Republican leaders warned their colleagues yesterday that ridding the Senate of filibusters on the President's judicial nominees would lead to legislative gridlock.
Some Republicans in Congress, frustrated by Democratic filibusters of President Bush's appellate court picks, have discussed changing Senate rules to end the practice. But Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) and Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) said it would be a bad idea to implement the so-called "nuclear option."
"There's a lot of sense, sentiment that we'd like to avoid it," Specter told Wolf Blitzer, host of CNN's "Late Edition."
"I'm going to use every ounce of my energy, Wolf, to avoid confronting the nuclear option, because I think it would be disastrous for America."
McCain also said he was "very concerned" about banning filibusters - which require 60 senators to end debate and allow a vote on a nominee - because Democrats have promised to use other rules to stop all legislative business in the showdown.
"I'm afraid it's going to shut down the United States Senate, and we have a lot of things to do," McCain told "Fox News Sunday." McCain also noted that Republicans did the same thing to President Clinton by refusing to give hearings to his judicial nominees.
Meanwhile, Sen. Joseph Biden (D-Del.), a former Judiciary Committee chairman, said Democrats should allow up or down floor votes on Bush's nominees.
"I don't think we should try to block [them] from being voted on in the Senate," Biden told NBC's "Meet the Press."
Biden said he would "spend a lot of time making the case" that the President shouldn't succeed in elevating Associate Justice Antonin Scalia, a conservative, to chief justice, should current chief William Rehnquist leave the Supreme Court or die of cancer.
"I think [Scalia's] a brilliant, decent man who I think misreads the Constitution, in my view. I would vote no," Biden said.
Originally published on February 28, 2005 |
