Thursday, May 19, 2005 | 11:02 a.m.
WASHINGTON -- Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said today the "nuclear option" under debate in the Senate could pave the way for Republicans to more easily approve not just conservative judges but all nominees and even legislation, including Yucca Mountain legislation.
"It's a slippery slope," Reid said at a press conference this morning.
As expected, Reid and Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., led their parties into battle Wednesday over judicial nominations. But the debate is also a historic showdown over Senate rules, the so-called nuclear option, and, some say, the future of the Senate itself.
The debate continued today, with a possible resolution expected Tuesday.
"The hour of decision has come for our nation's Senate," Reid told reporters gathered at the foot of the Capitol steps Wednesday. "In the debate that has begun, the Republican majority that holds the reins of power will have to make a choice. They will have to choose between their partisan interests or the people's interests."
The debate began when Frist called for action on federal appellate court nominee Priscilla Owen, a Texas Supreme Court justice. She is one of 10 controversial judicial nominees nominated by President Bush and blocked by filibuster by Democrats in the last Congress.
The nomination of a second of those controversial nominees, Janice Rogers Brown of the California Supreme Court, is also under debate, although Owen is expected to be the test case for what has been called the "nuclear option."
Under that option, Frist is expected to call for a rule change that would allow a simple majority, 51 senators, to halt a filibuster and call for a vote on Owen's nomination. Currently it takes 60 votes to halt a filibuster. The Senate has 55 Republicans.
"At some point, you quit talking and you give these people an up or down vote," Sen. Trent Lott, R-Miss., said today.
Reid has said the nuclear option could clear the way for Republicans to more easily approve not just judges but all nominees and even controversial legislation. Reid said he had long been "a thorn in the side" of lawmakers who advocate the proposed nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain because he had filibuster power.
There is no major Yucca Mountain legislation pending in Congress, except Yucca budget bills. Reid fights each year to cut the Yucca budget.
The Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982 bars senators from filibustering Yucca legislation under the act, but Nevada senators have used, or threatened to use, filibusters to block other Yucca-related bills. Beginning in 1996, Reid and former Sen. Richard Bryan, D-Nev., were able to use those tactics to delay a bill that would create a temporary nuclear waste dump at Yucca and speed waste shipments there. That legislation was ultimately approved by Congress but died after President Clinton vetoed it in 2000.
The nuclear option is so named because it is expected to yield new levels of partisan rancor and likely result in frustrated Democrats slowing the business of the Senate.
Democrats say the nuclear option would destroy the filibuster, which they say has been a vital check on the majority party's power throughout the history of the Senate.
"This is not the Senate envisioned by our founding fathers," Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., said.
Republicans say they are pursuing the nuclear option because Democrats in the last Congress made a historic decision to filibuster Bush nominees who are certain to have majority support in the Senate.
"I don't believe 40 senators in the minority should be able to decide who is on the bench," Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., said in a Senate floor speech. "These good people deserve an up or down vote."
A number of Republican senators have said they are responding to conservative voters who now rank judicial nominations among their top political interests.
Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., said voters are concerned about activist liberal judges who are restricting everything from the death penalty to the Pledge of Allegiance and Christmas displays. Liberal activist groups, with the support of the liberal media, are unfairly smearing Bush nominees, Sessions said.
"They should not be calling the shots here," Sessions said.
Liberal activist groups have turned from the legislative and executive branches of government to the courts, Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., said.
"The left wants people who will pass laws from the bench," Brownback said.
Democrats argue the opposite -- that the Republicans, who already control the White House and Congress, are now seeking to rubber stamp all Bush nominees, even a handful of the most controversial.
"Republicans have sought to destroy the balance of power in our government by grabbing power for the presidency, silencing the minority and weakening our democracy," Reid said in remarks on the floor. "America does not work the way the radical right-wing dictates to President Bush and the Republican Senate leaders."
Republicans seek "essentially a dictatorship," Sen. Ken Salazar, D-Colo., said. "They want to have 100 percent of the power in their hands, and that is not the American way."
Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., said, "The nuclear option is an assault on the American people. It is the tyranny of the majority personified."
The list of controversial judges has actually dwindled from 10 to seven as three withdrew or retired. As a compromise, Democrats have proposed allowing votes on all but three if Republicans abandon the nuclear option. Republicans rejected that.
Democrats made several early attempts Wednesday as debate got under way to sidetrack the showdown. Reid proposed a senators-only meeting in which the lawmakers hammer out a compromise on their own. Reid also proposed that Frist bring noncontroversial nominees to the floor instead of Owen and Brown.
Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., even suggested that one nominee in particular -- Nevada Attorney General Brian Sandoval, nominated by Bush on March 1 to be a U.S. District Court judge -- be debated and voted on by the Senate instead of more controversial nominees.
But Frist brushed the proposals aside and debate soon began on Owen and Brown.
"I don't rise for party," Frist said. "I rise for principle. I rise for the principle that the judicial nominees with the support of the majority of senators deserve up or down votes on this floor."
Republicans defended Owen and Brown. Sen. George Allen, R-Va., said the nominees were the victims of "character assassination." Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, former Judiciary Committee chairman, said Owen was "eminently qualified."
Democrats said the two were outside the mainstream. Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., said Owen had a "radical agenda." Reid has called them "radical judges."
Reid held a press conference with the Congressional Black Caucus, whose 43 members sent a letter to Frist today expressing the irony that the filibuster, once used to block civil rights legislation, could now be discarded to pave the way for judges who caucus members say have not been supportive of minority rights.
Reid descended the Capitol steps for another press conference on Wednesday, closely trailed by Black Caucus members and dozens of other House and Senate Democrats who crowded behind him in a symbolic show of support.
Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., yelled, "Give 'em hell, Harry!" The Nevada senator turned and smiled before launching into his speech.
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