Printer-Friendly Version

(CNSNews.com) -- The "showdown" on the floor of the U.S. Senate began Wednesday morning, as any good showdown does: with each side trying to frame the argument over President Bush's most conservative judicial nominees.

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist said the most important thing right now is to see if Texas Supreme Court Justice Priscilla Owen and California Supreme Court Justice Janice Rogers Brown are "deserving of a vote - yes or no - on the floor of the United States Senate."

Democrats urged Republicans to be reasonable: Deal with the less controversial judges first, they said.

Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid said taking up the nominations of Thomas Griffith and other "noncontroversial judges" would clear the way for those judges to get to work within a few days. "Otherwise they're going to be waiting until we get through all of this," Reid said.

In response, Frist said the first nominee up is Priscilla Owen - and as other nominees come out of the Judiciary Committee, they will be taken up as well.

Reid responded that Democrats "will not agree to committees meeting during the time we are doing a debate on Priscilla Owen."

Let's talk it over

In a second attempt to forestall a change in Senate rules, Reid suggested that the Senate do what it did during the Clinton impeachment: "At that time we retired to the old Senate chambers, no staff there - just 100 Senators. And we worked through some very difficult problems, and surprised everyone."

Reid asked Frist to consider doing that again: "Consider joining with me...have all of us retire to the chamber, sit down and talk through this issue and see if there is a way that we can resolve this, short of this so-called nuclear option.

"I think it would be good for the body, I think it would be good for the American public to see that we are able to sit down in the same room and work things out. I'm not sure that we could, but I think it would be worthy of our efforts."

Frist responded that the two sides have "engaged in negotiations" over the last four or five months, to no avail. He indicated that Democrat attempts to "delay and sidetrack" won't work.

Frist said fundamental question before the Senate is this: "Is Priscilla Owen out of the mainstream?" Eighty-four percent of Texans don't think so, he said.

"All we want is a vote - an up-or-down vote; accept, reject, confirm -- that's all that we're asking for. We don't want the constitutional option; we didn't ask for the constitutional option."

Frist said it's the Democrats who have shattered 214 of Senate tradition by filibustering judicial nominees in the first place.

Frist said the judicial filibuster is now being used on a routine basis. "Why?" he asked, adding that the stalled nominees deserve the courtesy of a vote - a simple majority vote, rather than the 60 votes required to cut off a filibuster.

>> Continued -- Page 1 2

Copyright © 1998-2005 CNSNews.com - Cybercast News Service