Bush never had a chance to override a filibuster on his nominees.
During the 108th Congress in which the Republicans regained control of the Senate by a 51-49 margin, the nominees that the Senate Democrats had blocked in the 107th Congress began to be moved through the now Republican Senate Judiciary Committee.[10] Subsequently Senate Democrats started to filibuster judicial nominees. On February 12, 2003, Miguel Estrada, a nominee for the D.C. Circuit, became the first court of appeals nominee ever to be successfully filibustered.[citation needed] Later, nine other conservative court of appeals nominees were also filibustered. These nine were Priscilla Owen, Charles W. Pickering, Carolyn Kuhl, David W. McKeague, Henry Saad, Richard Allen Griffin, William H. Pryor, William Gerry Myers III and Janice Rogers Brown.[11] Three of the nominees (Estrada, Pickering and Kuhl) withdrew their nominations before the end of the 108th Congress.
As a result of these ten filibusters, Senate Republicans began to threaten to change the existing Senate rules by using what Senator Trent Lott termed the “nuclear option”. This change in rules would eliminate the use of the filibuster to prevent judicial confirmation votes. However, in the 108th Congress, with only a two vote majority, the Republicans were in a weak position to implement this procedural maneuver.
And now, of course, Harry Reid has implemented the ‘nuclear option’ in order to end the threat of filibusters by the Republicans.
“the Republicans were in a weak position to implement this procedural maneuver.”
And how are the Dems in any a stronger position now (55 - 51 then) than the GOPe is now? The difference Dems are willing to do what it takes while GOPe is not. If the GOPe had the commitment to their supposed cause the as the Dems do now they would have implemented the nuclear option. But once again the GOPe just never seems to find it the right time to stem the tide of progessivism.
“Three of the nominees (Estrada, Pickering and Kuhl) withdrew their nominations before the end of the 108th Congress.”
Because they could see the writing on the wall that the GOPe wasn’t going to fight for them”
The overall point is that the GOPe is not much better a choice than the dem. The we have to elect the lesser of two evil strategy just isn’t working very well.
So we reelect Cornyn and win the Senate. With leadership like him the thinking of “1/2 of 1/3 of government” becomes “can’t pass anything because the President has the veto”, etc, etc, etc.