Dropping the Bomb

It's getting closer...

The U.S. Senate on Wednesday began formal debate on Texas Supreme Court Justice Priscilla Owen's nomination for a seat on the federal appeals court, moving the chamber one step closer to a historic vote on the future of the judicial filibuster.

"We're going to spend whatever time is necessary to debate all the issues, to really exhaust the discussion on these candidates," Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., told reporters Tuesday before submitting Owen's name to the Senate for a confirmation vote.

The long-anticipated floor debate is a prologue to Frist's efforts to invoke the "nuclear option," a parliamentary maneuver that, if successful, would subsequently preclude all filibusters of federal circuit court and Supreme Court nominees.

At the same time, negotiations continued apace by a half-dozen or more moderate senators from both parties to find a solution that will avoid the nuclear option.

Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid of Nevada has said that if the judicial filibuster is eliminated, his party would bring much of the Senate's business to a halt. Given the Senate's need for unanimous consent for even the simplest actions, that threat could be easy to carry out.

Frist set a schedule Wednesday that calls for each party to alternate one hour of debate on both Owen and, presumably, the validity of the judicial filibuster itself.

Formal debate was set to end at 7:45 p.m. EDT, Wednesday. It was not immediately clear whether debate on Owen, first nominated just more than four years ago for a seat on the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, will continue today or even until Friday.

All the compromise negotiations should fail. It's well past time for compromise from the Democrats, who chose to play for the GOP to fold for far too long. A smart Democratic Senate leader might have negotiatied a compromise after his party got its clock cleaned in the November elections. Now Bill Frist needs to move, because the people who support his party the most are ready to go the mat on this issue.

Even better, the idiots at MoveOn have launched a new ad campaign against the nuclear option and Frist that uses imagery comparing Frist to Emperor Palpatine from Revenge of the Sith. Here's my favorite part...

The Senate debate over the filibuster is set to begin today; the sixth "Star Wars" movie will begin showing Thursday at midnight. MoveOn said its ads will be shown on CNN.

In a related part of its campaign to preserve the filibuster, which allows Democratic senators to block votes for President Bush's judicial nominees. MoveOn also will send volunteers to some of the more than 3,700 theaters showing the film. Once there, the volunteers will urge moviegoers to call their senators to endorse the filibuster.

Oh, yeah, that will work. I can't wait to see theater owners escort these idiots out onto the front sidewalk. it's funny that I'm in agreement with the LA Times on this one...

We usually like it when centrist senators like John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) try to galvanize the sensible center on behalf of some compromise, but we sincerely hope they fail in their attempt to preserve the Senate's filibuster. Count this page on the side of conservative social activists who are pushing Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist to "nuke" the filibuster.

We don't share these activists' enthusiasm for the White House judicial nominees triggering the current showdown. But we do believe that nominees are entitled to a vote on the floor of the Senate. The filibuster, an arcane if venerable parliamentary tactic that empowers a minority of 41 senators to block a vote, goes above and beyond those checks on majority power legitimately written into the Constitution.

The filibuster is an inherently reactionary instrument most famously used to block civil rights legislation for a generation. Democratic senators themselves decried the filibuster not long ago when they were in the majority and President Clinton's judicial nominees were being blocked.

Frist is on the verge of doing the right thing for the wrong reasons. He plans to bring the nomination of Priscilla R. Owen, a Texas Supreme Court justice, before the full Senate today. Democrats have blocked her nomination in the past, and Frist is now threatening to force a change in rules to prohibit filibusters of judicial nominees. That would be a great triumph for the American people.

Hey, maybe I spoke too soon. Maybe the Star Wars analogy does fit. We conservatives do seem to favor the Empire generally. So maybe in honor of Episode Three, let's get this taken care of -- today.