Frist on sidelines as moderates agree

WASHINGTON -- For Senate majority leader and presidential hopeful Bill Frist, last night's agreement on judicial nominees was full of what he called good news and bad news -- a centrist-packaged bundle that Frist said would bring a ''return to normalcy" in the US Senate.

But Frist nonetheless failed on what conservatives and religious activists saw as the bottom line: the codification of a rule allowing a straight up-or-down vote on judicial nominations. Two disputed judges will not necessarily be given votes under the deal negotiated last night, and Republicans agreed to abandon the idea of killing the filibuster for judicial nominees in the 109th Congress.

''We view this as a game of three-card monte," in which only three judges will be allowed a straight vote in the Senate, said Tom Minnery, spokesman for the Colorado-based Focus on the Family, which supports killing the filibuster for judicial nominations. ''This allows members of the Senate to duck the issue on whether every judge ought to have a vote."

Minnery said the group was not angry with Frist, who he said ''did what he could." But the group's chairman, James Dobson, called the deal ''a complete bailout" and a ''betrayal" by a ''cabal" of rogue Republicans.

Frist sought last night to accentuate the positive in the deal, and Senate GOP staffers portrayed the development as a win because several judges would receive votes. The leadership scheduled one vote -- on nominee Priscilla Owen -- for today, giving them at least one judge to satisfy conservatives.

''It was a miserable chapter in the history of the Senate, and I believe brought us to new lows," Frist said after the deal was announced. ''Fortunately tonight, it is possible that this unfortunate chapter in our history can come to a close."

The deal also spared Frist the possible embarrassment of a loss. Up until the deal was announced last night, lawmakers in both parties said they did not know how the vote on changing the filibuster procedure would come out.

Senator Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky, credited Frist with fostering a solution by scheduling a showdown vote to force a compromise, even though it was the chamber's moderates, not GOP majority leaders, who negotiated the deal.

But last night's agreement also revealed a crack in Frist's hold over his GOP caucus. At least four senators were prepared to break ranks and vote to keep the filibuster. Moderates, dismissed by some conservatives after last year's elections as less relevant in a more Republican Senate, ended up crafting a deal on their own.

''I think for Frist this is a humiliating defeat," said Nan Aron, president of the Alliance for Justice, which opposes confirmation of the conservative nominees. ''He had put all that he had into this fight, and essentially, senators [in both parties] undermined his ability to succeed. They cut the rug out from under him."