Leaders Say No Deal On Judges

(CBS/AP)  Top Senate leaders have given up on their efforts to compromise over President Bush's stalled judicial nominees, but other members continued to work on a possible deal to clear five blocked appeals court appointees and end threats to change long-standing filibuster rules.

Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid said Tuesday his negotiations with Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist failed because he refused to give up Democrats' ability to block Supreme Court and lower court nominees they consider too extreme. Court watchers think a Supreme Court vacancy could happen sometime this year.

"The goal of the Republican leadership and their allies in the White House is to pave the way for a Supreme Court nominee who would only need 50 votes for confirmation rather than 60," the number of senators needed to maintain a filibuster blocking a confirmation vote, Reid said.

Frist, for his part, insists that all of the White House's court appointments deserve confirmation votes from the Republican-controlled Senate.

"We both agreed that after several months of discussions, we have been unable to come to a negotiated position where the president's nominees get an up-or-down vote," Frist said.

The issue will likely come to a head in the next few days when Frist pushes for a vote on the nomination of either Priscilla Owen or Janice Rogers Brown, both of whom met Tuesday with President Bush.

That meeting took place as White House spokesman Scott McClellan stepped up criticism of those blocking their nominations in the Senate, reports CBS News Correspondent Mark Knoller.

"The role of the Senate is to provide their advice and consent," McClellan said. "It's not to provide advice and block."

He said that by filibustering some nominees, Senate Democrats have taken their opposition to an "unprecedented level."

"This whole showdown is a symptom of the bitterness and partisanship that prevails here in Washington," Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said Tuesday on CBS News' The Early Show. He said there "should be a compromise out there that allows votes on most of the judges."

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