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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: DuckTapeSunroof who wrote (682278)	5/13/2005 8:09:30 PM
From: Hope Praytochange	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 769670

Frist to Begin Showdown on Judicial Filibusters Next Week By CARL HULSE WASHINGTON, May 13 - Removing any doubt about his intentions, Senator Bill Frist, the majority leader, said today that next week he would advance the nominations of two judicial candidates opposed by Democrats and move for a change in Senate rules to prevent filibusters against the nominees should Democrats block a vote. "It is time for 100 senators to decide the issue of fair up or down votes for judicial nominees after over two years of unprecedented obstructionism," the office of Dr. Frist, a Republican from Tennessee, said in a statement that set the stage for what is expected to be an intricate Senate procedural dance in the coming days. The majority leader's office identified two state Supreme Court justices, Priscilla R. Owen of Texas and Janice Rogers Brown of California, as the focus of the showdown. Both have been blocked from final votes by Democrats who say they have compiled a disqualifying record of conservative judicial activism. Senior aides to Dr. Frist said that they expected to open the debate on Wednesday and that it could stretch for days as it moved toward a series of decisive votes. They expect to conclude the fight before Memorial Day. Democrats, who assert that the Republican majority is on the verge of breaking the rules of the Senate and threatening the very nature of the institution, said they were ready to engage. "I welcome this debate," Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the Democratic leader, said in a statement. "The time has come for Republican senators to decide whether they will abide by the rules of the Senate, or break those rules for the first time in 217 years of American history." Democrats said they believed that the majority leadership was still uncertain it had sufficient votes to force a rules change. They said the coming debate would provide them with a closely watched platform to outline both their objections to the judges and the argument against eliminating the filibusters against court nominees. The two Senate leaders and other senators continue to negotiate a potential compromise that would head off the vote on the rules change, but the Senate leaders and their advisers as well as an assortment of advocacy groups were preparing to plunge ahead with the full-scale filibuster fight.