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Catkiller Frist plans to try out the Nuclear Option on Tuesday. Six Republicans can stop him.
My thinking: it's a Senate rule, not a law, that says filibusters are allowed, and the Senate can make its own rules. It's also a Senate rule, not a law, that there have to be minority party members on committees at all. It's only a Senate rule, not a law, that says members of both parties can sign onto bills as co-sponsors.
Further thinking out loud...nothing says that when the political pendulum swings to the left (and it will, especially if more states follow Montana's lead in banning BBV machines and DeLay continues on his path of personal destruction), the Democrats can't take the good bills Republicans write, rewrite them real quick so they've got Democratic principal sponsors, change them just enough so no Republican will ever sign onto them, create some sort of memory hole for the Republican-created originals...then campaign against the remaining repukes by saying they haven't done a thing for their constituents. "See? We in the Democratic Party had to help out your state because the Republicans have become a bunch of do-nothings, and your state is Kansas--your state hasn't sent a Democrat to congress in fifty years! We even had to help states that refuse to help us!"
And a realistic, long-range-vision Republican senator knows we can do all this...because the tunnel-vision Republicans who comprise the minority are doing it to the Democrats.
There's got to be just two patriotic Republican senators--we already have four--who realize that screwing the Democrats as badly as Frist wants to screw us will bite them in the ass possibly as soon as 2007.
The question is: Who's it gonna be? I think we can get Conrad Burns. He's the Republican from Montana, and the fact that his state just banned the most effective tool Republicans have for gaining and retaining elective office (high-tech ballot box stuffing) means he CAN'T piss off his constituents. They have the power to get rid of him. And allowing the Republicans to cause the government to shut down because Bush only got 191 of his 200 judge nominees approved would definitely piss them off--anyone who was an adult when Newt Gingrich had a hissy fit and shut down the government can remember that the economy came to a standstill. (This would be exceptionally bad for Montana, who as a largely arid state is very reliant on the federal government.) Besides, the fact that Montana is a split state--one Democratic senator, one Republican--means that a good Democrat could win Burns' seat. Cross the state line and you've got a different situation: if Mike Crapo turned the crank of Idaho's electorate, they'd find another Republican to replace him. (Larry Craig will get sent back to Washington in the first election after he dies.)
We might also be able to get Robert Bennett, who stands in Orrin Hatch's shadow. Orrin Hatch is one of the big instigators of this power grab, so we can't get him. The way to help Sen. Bennett is to get him a list of all of the decisions Bush's diabolical nine made that were overturned by conservative higher-level courts. (A decision that was overturned by a liberal court will not impress Bennett's Mormon constituents--yes, Bennett is the junior senator from Utah.) At that point, Bennett can go on TV and tell his voters that he wants good conservative judges, not just "conservative judges," but Priscilla Owen and Janice Rogers are not good judges. Then describe Hatfield v. McCoy, in which Priscilla Owen sided with Hatfield but a US Court of Appeals judge who was appointed by Ronald Reagan decided Judge Owen overstepped her authority and overturned the decision. (Okay, discuss some real cases; I made that one up.) Finally, describe all the good conservative judges he put on the bench for Mr. Bush.
Two Republicans can win this for the American people.
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