Frist Hardens Effort to Stop Filibusters



WASHINGTON - Majority Leader Bill Frist said Sunday it was not "radical" to ask senators to vote on judicial nominees as he hardened his effort to strip Democrats of their power to stall President Bush's picks for the federal court.






Frist, speaking at an event organized by Christian groups trying to rally churchgoers to support an end to judicial filibusters, also said judges deserve "respect, not retaliation," no matter how they rule.


A potential candidate for the White House in 2008, the Tennessee Republican made no overt mention of religion in the brief address, according to a text of his videotaped remarks released before the event in Louisville, Ky.


Instead, Frist seemed intent on steering clear of the views expressed by House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas, and other conservatives in and out of Congress who have urged investigations and even possible impeachment of judges they describe as activists.


"Our judiciary must be independent, impartial and fair," Frist said.


"When we think judicial decisions are outside mainstream American values, we will say so. But we must also be clear that the balance of power among all three branches requires respect — not retaliation. I won't go along with that," Frist said.


For months, Frist has threatened to take action that would shut down the Democrats' practice of subjecting a small number of judicial appointees to filibusters. Barring a last-minute compromise, a showdown is expected this spring or summer.


"I don't think it's radical to ask senators to vote. I don't think it's radical to expect senators to fulfill their constitutional responsibilities," said Frist, whom Democrats have accused of engaging in "radical Republican" politics.


While a majority of the Senate is sufficient to confirm a judge, it takes 60 votes under Senate rules to overcome a filibuster and force a final vote.


Rather than change the rules directly, Frist and other Republicans have threatened to seek an internal Senate ruling that would declare that filibusters are not permitted against judicial nominees.


Because such a ruling can be enforced by majority vote, and Republicans have 55 seats in the 100-member Senate, GOP leaders have said they expect to prevail if they put the issue to the test.


Democrats blocked 10 appointments in Bush's first term. The president has renominated seven of the 10 since he won re-election, and Democrats have threatened to filibuster them again.


Republicans pushed two of the nominees — including Texas Supreme Court Judge Priscilla Owen — from the Senate Judiciary Committee last week on party-line votes.


Sen. Joseph Biden (news, bio, voting record), D-Del., raised the possibility of a deal. "I think we should compromise and say to them that ... we'll let a number" of the seven judges "go through, the two most extreme not go through and put off this vote and compromise," he said on ABC's "This Week."


Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., is open to compromise, his spokesman said Sunday. "There's lot of concern about the road Senator Frist is leading the Senate down," Jim Manley said.


In his remarks, Frist singled out Owen for praise, possibly indicating she will become the test case for the expected showdown. She has been nominated for the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.


Frist said that "even though a majority of senators support her, she has been denied an up-or-down vote on the floor of the Senate. ... Justice Owen deserves better. She deserves a vote."





The majority leader noted that some Republicans are opposed to ending judicial filibusters, fearing that the GOP may someday want to use the same tactics against appointments made by a Democratic president.

"That may be true. But if what Democrats are doing is wrong today, it won't be right for Republicans to do the same thing tomorrow," Frist said.

Republicans held a Senate majority for six of President Clinton's eight years in office and frequently prevented votes on his court appointments by bottling them up in the committee, knowing the nominees would be confirmed if allowed to go to a vote by the full Senate.

One nominee, Richard Paez, a district court judge when he was nominated, waited more than four years before being confirmed to the appeals court. Vermont Sen. Patrick Leahy (news, bio, voting record), ranking Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, said Frist supported a filibuster of Paez's nomination. "I guess Senator Frist wasn't running for president then," Leahy told CNN's "Late Edition."

Frist's comments on the independence of judges follow DeLay's campaign against the federal courts since judges refused to order the reinsertion of Terri Schiavo's feeding tube.

After her death DeLay said, "The time will come for the men responsible for this to answer for their behavior." He later apologized, saying he had spoken in an "inartful" way.

The Louisville event — "Justice Sunday: Stop the Filibuster Against People of Faith" — was held in a church and was sponsored by the Family Research Council.

"What this boils down to is that the philosophy of that minority of liberal senators in the United States Senate has been repudiated in almost election after election, almost every recent election," said the group's president, Tony Perkins.

"In order to shape the culture and drive public policy, they're holding on to the courts and they're using the filibuster as if it's a junkyard dog to keep people from invading their territory. And that's wrong," he told Fox.

But Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, the second-ranking Democrat, said, "I think what this group has done has become unfortunately entirely too political." Sen. Lindsey Graham (news, bio, voting record), R-S.C., said the council should not question Democrats' faith or call them religious bigots.

"I don't think that helps the country and I don't think it's fair," Graham said.