Next week, the real battle begins.... and we're just getting warmed up.

[mikelewis]

I sincerely believe the filibuster is going to succeed. This of course may be wishful thinking but this sudden and roaring opposition to Alito reminds me of the last time we all asked the party to do something. It was a little over a year ago when we asked our Dems to give us ONE Senator to protest the Election. They unleashed Boxer in response. I believe they will give us what we ask for this time as well, a successful Filibuster of Samuel Alito.

If on Monday, the Republicans can't muster the required 60 votes for cloture, the Republican Mafia will call for a vote on the Nuclear Option. This is a description of the Nuclear Option.

If all goes as planned, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) will rise after several days of debate beginning today over one of President Bush's judicial nominees and call for an end to Democrats' delaying tactics. The presiding officer will then rule in his favor.

Democrats will protest the ruling and ask for a vote to overturn it. The Republican leader will seek to table that appeal. If Frist and the GOP majority prevail, a long tradition of filibustering will be narrowed and a new precedent will be set allowing the Republicans to force a vote on a nomination with a simple majority instead of three-fifths of the Senate.

Republicans hold 55 of the seats in the chamber, and until now they have needed 60 votes to end debate and force a vote. But Republicans believe they have figured out how to use the chamber's rules so that only a simple majority -- 51 votes -- is required to force an up-or-down vote.

To get there, Republicans will have to evade a requirement that they have a two-thirds vote -- 67 of 100 senators -- to change the chamber's rules. Republicans will argue that they are attempting to set a precedent, not change the Senate rules, to disallow the use of filibusters as a delaying tactic on judicial nominations. And by doing so, they say, they are returning to a more traditional concept of majority rule.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/05/17/AR2005051701425.html

For us to win, we must stop the Nuclear Option. If the Nuclear Option is triggered, the votes will be tallied and Alito will be the next SCOTUS Justice. To stop it, We must be able to influence 6 Republican Senators to vote AGAINST changing the rules. Without the election coming up in November, I'd say we have no chance but there is an election and Diebold stock is currently plummeting.

We can do this, I firmly believe that but it's going to take an even greater effort on our part. Once the filibuster is firmly in place, we must refocus this Phone March on Washington and zero in on Republican possibilities. I know there are few but think back a few months to the Bolton Confirmation Hearing. My Senator, George Voinovich had a change of heart and refused to vote Bolton favorably out of committee. I was as stunned by that as I was by Byrd declaring his vote FOR Alito. So now I know we can get to one; and if we can get to one, we can get 6. If we get 6, we win. It's a simple as that.

[ClayZ]

1. K & R

:kick:

[orleans]

2. i would name the republicans who side with democrats once in awhile

and that would be lincoln chafee, susan collins (and she has already said she'd vote for alito), olympia snow (who won't be running again so no horse in the race) and specter (who will leave as his legacy the magic bullet theory and the man who let fascism run amok by voting amok out of committee)

chafee, collins (cough), snowe, specter, jeffords (I)??
on a stat work-up i also found
dewine, coleman, smith, talent, voinovich, warner, mccain (in that order) leaning with dems every once in awhile.

[BadgerKid]

3. changing the rules

I thought I read that it was the R's who originally changed the rules to make it harder to end a filibuster.

[BadgerKid]

4. R's disallowed vote on 59 Clinton nominees

Feminist Daily News Wire
May 8, 2003

Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) noted that Senate Republicans were trying to change the rules because Senate Democrats have launched filibusters against two judicial nominees - Priscilla Owen and Miguel Estrada - after approving 123 of President Bush's nominees. This in light of the fact that Republicans did not even allow 59 of President Clinton's nominees to have hearings. "Any attempt to resolve this problem...has got to be something other than George Bush gets all his nominees and 'Gee, hopefully things will get better when the Democrats have a president," Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI) said, according to the Associated Press.


http://www.feminist.org/news/newsbyte/uswirestory.asp?id=7771

[converted_democrat]

7. Thank you for providing that info, I wasn't aware of it! n/t

[TheWatcher]

5. So The Country IS Worth Saving Now? :)

Sorry, just had to kid you a little bit. :)

I believe we can do it too, Mike. There is still hope.

And even if we fail, the fight does not end.

Ever.

Keep Up The Fight.

[mikelewis]

6. WE might as well go down swinging.

I'm not sure if it's worth saving I just believe that it can be saved.

[Wordie]

8. FYI, Wiki has some interesting reading on the nuclear option & filibuster

Here's a link to the article on the nuclear option:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_option_(filibuster)

The article is quite long and comprehensive, and is worth a read. But as I realize everyone is really busy, and really tired, I'll post a few relevant highlights of the wiki article here.

First, poll results on the issue appear to be contradictory:

Republican pollster Ayres, McHenry and Associates found that 82 percent of registered voters believe that "well-qualified" nominees should receive an up or down vote.<35> An Associated Press-Ipsos poll released May 20, 2005, found 78 percent of Americans believe the Senate should take an "assertive role" examining judicial nominees rather than just give the president the benefit of the doubt.<36> Democratic pollster Westhill Partners found that only 30 percent of Americans approve changing "the rules to require only 51 votes to end a filibuster — thereby eliminating the current system of checks and balances on the majority party." <37>

And here's where the support for the nuclear option is coming from:

Pat Robertson, founder of Christian Coalition of America and several other prominent Christian conservatives have endorsed the nuclear option as a necessary means of getting conservative judges onto the bench. In a May 1, 2005 interview on ABC's 'This Week with George Stephanopoulos', Pat Robertson said that Democratic judges are a greater threat to U.S. unity and stability than Al Qaeda, Nazi Germany or Civil War. <39> On Sunday, April 25, 2005, Family Research Council sponsored "Justice Sunday" featuring Bill Frist - a 90-minute simulcast over Christian radio and television networks enthusiastically supporting the nuclear option.<40> <41> In January 2005, Dr. James C. Dobson, head of the Focus on the Family, threatened six Democratic senators if they block conservative nominees. <42> On May 24, 2005, after the compromise negotiated between 14 Senators was announced, Dobson, said the agreement "represents a complete bailout and a betrayal by a cabal of Republicans and a great victory for united Democrats." <43>

And here's evidence of Senator Frist's hypocrisy:

opponents of the nuclear option point to Senator Bill Frist's vote to filibuster Paez in 2000 as evidence that Frist does in fact support the idea of a 60-vote threshold when it suits him. When a vote for cloture on the confirmation of Paez was called, 14 Senators voted to continue the filibuster, including Frist.<58>

But this is not so positive:

The nuclear option has been used in the past, notably by Robert Byrd in 1977, 1979, 1980, and 1987 when he was Democratic majority leader.

Republicans in general have supported the filibuster in the past:

Republicans were staunch supporters of the filibuster when they were a minority party and frequently employed it to block legislation. Republicans continue to support the filibuster for general legislation--the current Republican leadership insists the proposed rule change only affect judicial nominations. According to the Democrats, arguments that a simple majority should prevail apply equally well to all votes where the Constitution does not specify a three-fifths majority. Republicans state that there is a difference between the filibustering of legislation -- which affects only the Senate's own constitutional prerogative to consider new laws -- and the filibustering of a President's judicial or executive nominees, which arguably impinges on the constitutional powers of the Executive branch.

This raises questions that as yet have not been discussed:

The legality of the nuclear option has been challenged. The Senate parliamentarian, Alan Frumin, was appointed by Senator Lott. Furmin is an ostensibly neutral staff member and appointed keeper of the Senate's rules, and is opposed to the nuclear option.<2> It's been reported that a Congressional Research Service report "leaves little doubt" that the nuclear option would not be based on previous precedents of the Senate.<3>

It appears that Bush's nomination of Alito has already violated the terms of the Gang of 14 agreement to stop the nuclear option:

The agreement to stave off the "nuclear option" reached by 14 moderate Senators supports a strong interpretation of Advice and Consent from the Constitution. <82> (pdf):
We believe that, under Article II, Section 2, of the United States Constitution, the word "Advice" speaks to consultation between the Senate and the President with regard to the use of the president's power to make nominations. We encourage the Executive branch of government to consult with members of the Senate, both Democratic and Republican, prior to submitting a judicial nomination to the Senate for consideration.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_option_(filibuster)

The wiki on the nuclear option also offers external links to a several sites and fact sheets (if you need more info than the extensive wiki article!), both pro and con.

Here is some info of interest from PFAW's page on the nuclear option:

...staunch nuclear option proponents like Senators Hatch and Frist have their own histories to explain.


In 1994, when some Republicans were opposing a cloture vote on a judicial nomination, Hatch defended the minority’s right to filibuster, declaring that the filibuster is “one of the few tools the minority has to protect itself and those the minority represents.”

More recently Senator Frist voted to support a Republican filibuster of a Clinton appellate nominee, Richard Paez, and even voted for a motion to postpone consideration of the nomination after cloture had been invoked – an exceedingly rare tactic used to avoid a final vote.

Senator Howard Baker Jr. (R-TN), stated during the successful filibuster waged against Abe Fortas (which he supported): "On any issue the majority at any given moment is not always right."

http://www.pfaw.org/pfaw/general/default.aspx?oid=18350

[mikelewis]

9. Maybe that's why Byrd is voting for Alito...

"The nuclear option has been used in the past, notably by Robert Byrd in 1977, 1979, 1980, and 1987 when he was Democratic majority leader."

Byrd's support for the filibuster and opposition to the Nuclear Option would actually hurt us. Maybe that's why he's not in getting into this fight. It removes the appearance of hypocrisy from our stance.

[Wordie]

10. FAR more interesting is Frist's "FLIP FLOP" on it, don't you think? eom

[mikelewis]

11. Precisely