[The_Victor]

I guess I'm not following this. Did the committee not approve Shedd on a voice vote to go forth to a full Senate vote? So what's left to debate now?

I'll provide my best understanding.

Shedd was not brought up for a vote (a brake of Lehey's promise to Thurmond). Now they approve on voice vote (all democRATs voting against, but Lehey declaring that the ayes have it. Debate will be on the floor of the Senate, obstructing other work, and as the author says, the only reason for debate is to kill the nomination, otherwise they are voted up or down by the full Senate. If I understand the procedures correctly, once voted down by the full Senate, the nominee cannot be brought back some significant period of time (I'm not sure about this).

Senate rules are always clear as mud.

[alwaysconservative]

I'm trying to figure out what religion got into Leahy. He seemed impervious to public opinion before in his stalling tactics. Does he know something about sending Shedd to the Senate floor that we don't? Like a filibuster is in the works? He dumped on his fellow Dem committee members with accepting the voice vote, I thought, unless there is some other hidden agenda involved. It just seemed weird to me, but maybe I'm just getting paranoid.