Senate OKs Judicial Nominee Brown

56-43 Vote Ends Two-Year Confirmation Effort By GOP

(AP) 
Those nominees were not guaranteed confirmation votes in the centrist agreement, and Democrats are expected to try and block all of them.

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., said Tuesday he wasn't shirking a fight over those nominations. "As they come out of committee, we're going to bring them to the floor," he said.

But Myers' nomination already is pending in the full Senate, and the others have yet to get a vote in the Senate Judiciary Committee. North Carolina judge Terrence Boyle is the only name expected to be voted on by the committee on Thursday.

Overshadowing everything is a potential vacancy on the Supreme Court. The most likely for retirement this summer is 80-year-old Chief Justice William Rehnquist, who has cancer. The Senate then would have to debate Bush's choice for that court, pushing other nominees even further back in the queue.

Democrats have been arguing that the Republican-controlled Senate has spent too much time on Bush's judicial picks and not enough on the country's other priorities. "We've spent endless hours, endless days, too many weeks debating radical judges and Republican attempts to abuse power," said Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid of Nevada.

But Brown's supporters said her confirmation to the D.C. circuit was long overdue.

"She does possess outstanding qualifications to have first earned the nomination from our distinguished president and secondly, to have earned the support of this body in the advise and consent role," said Sen. John Warner, R-Va., one of the centrists who forged the filibuster compromise.

Brown's supporters said critics were concerned about a conservative black woman getting a seat of power inside the federal judiciary. Brown becomes the second black woman on the D.C. court, which decides important government cases involving separation of powers and the authority of federal agencies.

Democrats have been blocking Brown because they see her as a conservative judicial activist who ignores the law in favor of her own political views. They are critical of her record as a jurist who supported limits on abortion rights and corporate liability and opposed affirmative action.

Pryor was given a temporary appointment to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals by Bush after being blocked by Democrats. That appointment should be allowed to expire at the end of the year, instead of confirming him for a lifetime position, said Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass.

A confirmation vote is expected for Pryor on Thursday, but Kennedy said Democrats would have plenty to say before that vote.

"We are going to be spending days to make sure the American people understand and know what Mr. Pryor said about the Americans with Disabilities Act, let alone what you said about voting rights, let alone when he said about family and medical leave," Kennedy said.