GO NUCULAR!:

GOP senators pushing for up-or-down vote: Conservatives aim to stop filibusters on judges (Julie Hirschfeld Davis, November 10, 2004, Baltimore Sun)

The raging fight over the federal judiciary that has long divided the two parties has sparked a heated Republican tussle on Capitol Hill, as conservatives and moderates feud over how much power President Bush should have to advance a Supreme Court nominee.

Sen. Arlen Specter, the moderate Pennsylvania Republican in line to chair the Judiciary Committee, is under strong pressure from conservatives in his party to promise he would support a move to give Bush's nominees an up-or-down vote in the Senate by helping GOP leaders force a change in a nearly century-old rule to prevent a judge from being blocked by a filibuster.

It is highly unlikely that the change will occur, say senior aides on both sides, but an intensive push for it was awakened last week when Specter, a supporter of abortion rights, touched off a firestorm in his party's ranks by saying Bush would have trouble winning confirmation of a Supreme Court nominee who opposes abortion rights. [...]

Specter has long advocated changing Senate rules to ensure that judicial nominees could get through the Senate committee process and to the floor within a set time - a revision that would deny senators the right they have to block a nominee from the floor. He has reiterated his support for such a procedure in private conversations with colleagues in recent days, senators and aides said.

Conservatives want Specter to go much further and endorse a move - sometimes called "the nuclear option," a reference to the heavy fallout it could carry for Senate procedures - that would effectively end the right of senators to use a filibuster to block a presidential nominee. Such action would set a precedent for Senate debates that would allow a simple majority to confirm a judicial nomination, including a Supreme Court justice.

"The bottom line has to be that the president has the right to get a vote, an up-or-down vote, on his nominees," Cornyn said.

Changing Senate rules can take as many as 67 votes, so Republicans would likely have to resort to the nuclear option - essentially short-circuiting regular Senate procedures to set a precedent - to alter the filibuster rules.

Under that scenario, Republicans could ask their presiding officer - most likely Vice President Dick Cheney - to rule that it was unconstitutional to require more than 51 votes to confirm a nominee. Republicans would have to muster only a simple majority to sustain that ruling - thus setting a precedent that judicial nominees could not be filibustered. The rule-change tactic was last used by Democrats in 1975.

It's long past time to do invoke this option.

Posted by Orrin Judd at November 10, 2004 8:02 PM