NYT:Senators Who Averted Showdown Face New Test in Ct. Fight (meet Thurs.)

[DeepModem Mom]

Senators Who Averted Showdown Face New Test in Court Fight
By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG
Published: July 14, 2005


WASHINGTON, July 13 - When seven Democrats and seven Republicans joined in the Senate to avert a showdown on President Bush's judicial nominees, they urged the president to remember the word "advice" in the Constitution's advice and consent clause. Now that Mr. Bush is consulting with leading senators on a Supreme Court vacancy, the so-called Gang of 14 is patting itself on the back.

"The word 'advice' was buried in history," declared Senator John W. Warner, Republican of Virginia, a chief architect of the deal, referring to the Constitutional mandate that the Senate advise and consent on presidential nominees. "Now we've resurrected it. I'm extremely satisfied."

That may have been the easy part. With the resignation of Justice Sandra Day O'Connor - and renewed speculation that Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, who has thyroid cancer and was in the hospital Wednesday with a fever, could retire - the members of the Gang of 14 are trying to chart a course that would keep them unified in the event of a divisive Supreme Court confirmation fight.

On Thursday, they are planning to meet for breakfast to do just that. If the gang sticks together, it could become a powerful force - so powerful that some of its members, including Mr. Warner, have insisted that the group steer clear of issues beyond the judiciary, for fear of becoming a kind of shadow leadership.

But the gang, which Ross K. Baker, a political scientist at Rutgers University, likens to "emergency standby equipment in the Senate," faces pitfalls that could cause it to splinter. Its members are under intense scrutiny both in the Capitol and at home, where some, particularly Republicans like Senators Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Mike DeWine of Ohio, are suffering political repercussions for crossing conservatives to join....


http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/14/politics/14gang.html?ei=5094&en=873c6f07b185431e&hp=&ex=1121400000&adxnnl=1&partner=homepage&adxnnlx=1121313934-uXqZf10WqzyO/nOeztj8Ww