"Reid Offers Olive Branch on Bush Nominee"

[GreenPartyVoter]

WASHINGTON (AP) - Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid on Monday offered the Democrats' support for one of President Bush's judicial nominees, former Senate lawyer Thomas Griffith, as a goodwill gesture in the confrontation over banning judicial filibusters.

"Let's take a step away from the precipice," Reid said. "Let's try cooperation, rather than confrontation, which seems to be the hallmark of what we've been doing here lately."

The offer came as President Bush and Senate Republicans renewed their pressure on Democrats to stop blocking some of his judicial nominees, four years to the day that the White House unveiled its first judicial picks.

"Each deserved a simple up-or-down vote by the entire Senate," Bush said in a statement, pointing out that two of his first nominees from 2001 - Texas judge Priscilla Owen and North Carolina judge Terrence Boyle - have yet to be approved by the Senate.

http://apnews1.iwon.com/article/20050510/D8A011JO0.html