Senate Democrats threaten roadblocks

WASHINGTON -- Girding for a showdown over judicial nominations, Senate Democratic leaders yesterday threatened to slow or stop all but the most essential legislative business if Republicans strip them of their ability to stop presidential nominees from being confirmed.

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In an unusual event staged on the steps of the Capitol, Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid of Nevada delivered a message to majority leader Bill Frist of Tennessee and the GOP: If they change the rules and ban the use of filibusters on judicial nominations, Democrats will use their power to make even ''routine matters" difficult for Republicans in Congress.

Reid, who appeared with about 35 of his party colleagues, said President Bush and Republican leaders in Congress ''have grown drunk with power" and want to give Bush unchecked authority to ''hand out lifetime jobs to judges whose rulings last forever."

Invoking the Founding Fathers, Reid said the filibuster rule is intended to balance power and give rights to the minority party, regardless of who is in power.

''Our constitution provides for checks and balances so that no one person in power -- so that no one political party -- can hold total control over the course of our nation," Reid said. ''But now, in order to break down the separation of powers and ram through their appointees to the judicial branch, President Bush and the Republican leadership want to eliminate a 200-year-old American rule."

Reid said Democrats are prepared to stop all legislation except bills that allow the government to operate, and he promised to make sure troops in Iraq and Afghanistan get what they need. Although Republicans control 55 of the Senate's 100 seats, members of the minority party can use procedural roadblocks that would make it difficult for the majority to accomplish legislative business.

Reid's statement, echoed in a letter he sent to Frist, represents a last-ditch attempt to persuade GOP moderates to buck their party leaders and oppose the effort to eliminate the use of filibusters to stop judicial nominees, a tactic the outnumbered Democrats have used with some success. In recent weeks, frustrated Republicans have ratcheted up their rhetoric over the need for those nominees to get up-or-down votes; their words grew bolder as party leaders became more confident they had 51 senators willing to change the rule.

Frist responded yesterday by accusing Democrats of being ''irresponsible and partisan" in threatening to shut down the Senate.

Senator John Cornyn, a Judiciary Committee member who has been a leading voice for Bush's judicial nominees, said that GOP leaders are sure they control enough votes to change the rules and that they are prepared to respond to the Democrats.

''At some point you have to take a stand, and I think this is the point to make a stand on the president's judicial nominees that have been filibustered for more than two years," said Cornyn, Republican of Texas. ''If we don't do this, I think those people who gave us the large majority and reelected the president are going to think that we are going to be ineffective."

Under current Senate rules, if 41 senators stand together to mount a filibuster -- refusing to end debate and agree to vote -- they can prevent legislators from voting on a judicial appointee. In Bush's first term, Democrats used that tactic to stop 10 judicial nominees, whom they considered conservative extremists, from being approved by the Republican-led Senate.

But Republicans want to take away the filibuster tactic through a rules-change maneuver that would require only 51 votes to break a filibuster; by contrast, it currently takes 60 senators to do so. Changing the rule would make it impossible to use filibusters to stall judicial nominees, which in turn would ensure that all of Bush's nominees are voted on by the GOP-controlled Senate.

Reid's letter urged Frist to abandon the strategy, called the ''nuclear option" for the bitter partisanship it could inject into Congress and the consequences it could have on legislative business. Reid warned Frist that Democrats will one day regain the majority in the Senate and that changing the rule ultimately tramples the rights of the minority party.

Also yesterday, the Heritage Foundation convened a forum a few blocks from the Capitol, where prominent conservative scholars made the case to end filibusters of judicial nominees. Todd F. Gaziano, a Heritage senior fellow, contended that Republican legislators must clear the way for judges to get approve-or-reject votes before the next vacancy occurs on the Supreme Court.

''It's crucial that the rules and precedents of the Senate be reformed before the president is faced with a vacancy on the Supreme Court," Gaziano said. ''If he can't count on a fair process -- and an unfair process is what the liberal constructionists are working so desperately to ensure -- he has every bad incentive to dumb down his choice."

Columnist George F. Will, who had strongly opposed the GOP maneuver, presented a slightly modified position yesterday at the forum. He said he didn't think the GOP tactic is called for ''at this time" and counseled Republicans to engage in the ''patience of politics" and use Democrats' tactics against them in upcoming midterm elections.

''Be clear-eyed about this," Will said. ''You're going to augment the power of the executive and presidency."

Rick Klein can be reached at rklein@globe.com.