REMAIN CALM!! ALL IS WELL!!! AAAHHHHHHH!!!!!!!
Posted on 05/12/2005 3:23:28 PM PDT by mdittmar
Senior aides to Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) reached out to conservative leaders Tuesday afternoon to explain the decision to consider President Bush’s embattled judicial nominees next week instead of this week, as many conservatives had hoped and expected.
Eric Ueland, Frist’s chief of staff, and Bill Wichterman, a senior Frist aide who handles outreach to outside groups, held a conference call with about 30 conservative activist leaders to tell them that the majority leader has moved slowly and deliberately in an effort to put Republicans in a strong position heading into a showdown with Democrats, according to participants.
The call was considered sensitive enough that Frist’s staff used a scrambling device to prevent it from being recorded by participants.
Conservatives were told that Frist has held off on triggering a procedural tactic that would shield judicial nominees from filibusters to give the GOP leadership more time to explore a possible compromise with Democrats and to strengthen the support of Republican senators for the controversial move, known as the nuclear or constitutional option.
Conservatives on the call included James Dobson, chairman of Focus on the Family, who hosts a daily radio program that reaches nearly 4 million people, making him one of the most influential conservatives in the country. Barrett Duke, vice president of the public-policy arm of the Southern Baptist Convention, also was on the call, as were representatives from the Judicial Confirmation Network, the American Center for Law & Justice, the Coalition for a Fair Judiciary and Concerned Women for America.
Conservative leaders had anticipated that Frist would trigger the option during the week before the May recess. Conservative activists were told in mid-April to ramp up their communication effort to peak the week of April 25.
Several conservative leaders then expected Frist to act on judges this week, and a few predicted an angry backlash if Frist did not do so when the Senate returned from the recess.
“It must happen next week,” Manuel Miranda, chairman of the National Coalition to End the Judicial Filibuster, said during last week’s recess. “It would be considered intolerable to delay any further than next week. … Were it to be delayed beyond the next week, the Senate GOP should expect tens of thousands of angry phone calls and faxes to tie up their lines.”
Other conservatives said they also expected a frustrated response.
Miranda organized a Washington press conference Monday attended by representatives of various conservative groups, such as the Judicial Confirmation Network, Advance USA and 60 Plus, to demand an immediate vote on the constitutional option.
After the press conference, the Nashville Tennessean reported that conservative activists had pledged to pressure Frist to trigger the nuclear option immediately, and Knight Ridder, a news service with national circulation, reported: “The Senate majority leader, under fire from all sides, has a frozen trigger finger.”
Miranda declined to comment on Tuesday’s conference call with Frist’s staff, or to speculate about whether it was prompted to quell conservatives’ agitation.
Conservatives and political observers say the stakes on ending the judicial filibuster are particularly high for Frist because he is widely anticipated to be planning a run for president in 2008. Conservatives say that he must end the Democrats’ filibuster of the nominees if he is to have conservative support in a GOP primary.
A source familiar with the Senate GOP leadership’s strategy said there has been no delay in the timing of the option.
“Bill Frist and his leadership have built to this moment very consciously and wittingly; they could have [done the constitutional option] at the end of last year or the beginning of this year,” the source said. “They were hoping that there would be a change in the minority’s behavior.”
Ueland told conservatives to expect a lengthy floor debate between the time when Frist calls up a nominee and when Republicans vote on the option in response to an anticipated Democratic filibuster, predicting that all 55 Republican senators would be heard.
Frist is likely to bring up Priscilla Owen, a nominee for the 5th Circuit, or Janice Rogers Brown, a nominee to the D.C. Circuit. Sen. Charles Schumer (N.Y.), one of the Democrats spearheading the opposition to the nominees, said this week that neither should be on the bench, an indication that Democrats will filibuster.
Conservatives gained an inkling that Frist would not bring a judicial nominee to the Senate floor this week at a luncheon hosted during the recess by Paul Weyrich, chairman of the Free Congress Foundation. Frist told guests at the luncheon that he wanted to finish the highway bill, which is currently on the Senate floor.
Speaking to reporters Tuesday, Frist said that he planned for the Senate to pass the supplemental appropriations bill and the highway bill this week and then “turn to 100 United States senators and move to the issue surrounding judges.”
“It’s time to do that,” he added.
Ueland told conservatives Tuesday that once the highway bill is passed there is no pressing legislation on the Senate calendar that would interfere with timing of the constitutional option, assuring them that the “road is clear,” according to participants.
I am for this option, of course, but I am sick and tired of these people demanding that the GOP pander to their every whim. And I don't mean on just this issue.
Frist has his reasons.
REMAIN CALM!! ALL IS WELL!!! AAAHHHHHHH!!!!!!!
Conservatives on the call included James Dobson, chairman of Focus on the Family, who hosts a daily radio program that reaches nearly 4 million people, making him one of the most influential conservatives in the country. Barrett Duke, vice president of the public-policy arm of the Southern Baptist Convention, also was on the call, as were representatives from the Judicial Confirmation Network, the American Center for Law & Justice, the Coalition for a Fair Judiciary and Concerned Women for America.
BUMP! We have some great people holding our humble public servants' feet to the fire.....
You mean the people that vote for them,the people they work for?
Outside groups???? Maybe that's why the Republicans are in trouble
They better be damned good ones.
BTW, ever notice how the libs use their left-wing special interest groups to call these groups "right-wing special interest groups?"
I would prefer the Janice Rogers Brown would be the first to come to a vote and the possible nuke option. It would be harder for the RATS to vote down a minority and they might pass Owens as a bargaining chip for voting Rogers Brown down.
Monday or Tuesday of next week will be fine. We want the nuke dropped before Rehnquist retires next month.
Just caught an ad on FNC about the stonewalling over judges. Very powerful....the focus was on Judge Brown; but it expanded to include the judges who've been waiting for up to four years for a vote.
The tag line was: "The role of a Senator is to VOTE...up or down. Enough is enough."
Wish I'd caught the name of the group that paid for this.
We've been calm for 4 years....ENOUGH!!
Why not bundle all of the filibustered judges into a single up or down vote? Is there any senate rule that prevents this? Doesn't the senate routinely approves whole lists of presidential promotions to general officer in the services?
NO he hasn't.......yet.
It's boilng down to zero sum.
If Frist does not get it done, the Repubs have a major problem. A lot of us have swallowed a lot of spit for so many elections. I for one, am done with it, unless they stand and deliver on this.
Yes. Even Hillary.
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