Last summer he was 5 votes shy of the 50 needed. BUT...
Today (yes, in this session) he'd have at least 2-3 more: Specter would definitely vote for it just to try to ensure his chairmanship, and he would be willing to cash some chips among Chaffee, Snowe, etc to get their votes. So it is possible to get this changed on Tuesday 11/16, as a point of order, when the senate is in executive session to consider the nomination of Francis Harvey to Secretary of the Army.
That can happen this session, and next session's Senate - with 55 Repubs - would never vote to reverse this rule.
Frist & Lott have both said they could do this right after the November election. Let's hold them to it... contact the senators
I agree that the timing is now.
If this is accomplished, then it doesn't matter if Specter becomes chair or not.
Good idea.
It might be that the problem we have is that the Republican senators really don't believe in "Republicanism" and want to keep allowing Democrats to obstruct the judicial nominations. Many of our members seem content to have business as usual, it seems to me.