FIRST SERVE THE PORK, THEN SERVE UP THE LAMBS:

Jurists Picked for Showdown on Filibuster: Frist propels California and Texas justices to the center of the political brawl. The Senate will consider their nominations next week. (Mary Curtius, May 14, 2005, LA times)

California Supreme Court Justice Janice Rogers Brown and a Texas judge were named Friday as the federal judicial nominees who will be considered by the Senate next week, a move expected to trigger a long-awaited showdown with Democrats.

The announcement Friday by Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) propels Brown and Priscilla R. Owen, a justice on the Texas Supreme Court, to center stage of a political brawl that has gripped the Senate for weeks — over use of the filibuster against a president's picks for federal judgeships. [...]

The showdown on the issue is expected shortly after the Senate votes on a highway funding bill it has been debating. A vote on that bill is expected early next week, said Bob Stevenson, Frist's spokesman.

Stevenson said Frist would then initiate a floor debate on Owen and Brown. The majority leader picked those two judges, he said, because they were "accomplished women with compelling life stories who have had distinguished careers and received very high recommendations from their peers and from the American Bar Assn."

He also noted they had been elected to their positions by voters in their states.

Stevenson said that at some point, Frist would call up the nomination of one of the two, a move he said would then "initiate the discussion of the rules."

He declined to say which nominee Frist would seek a vote on first.