Politics

Daschle Agrees To Hold Vote On Judges

June 20, 2001 / 12:42 PM EDT / AP

Senate Majority Leader Thomas Daschle will let the full Senate decide whether to go along with a Republican demand that President Bush's Supreme Court nominees be guaranteed a Senate floor vote.

Republican senators fear Democrats will block Mr. Bush's judicial nominations and wanted assurances that his nominees will at least reach the Senate floor for consideration.

Daschle said Tuesday he is against giving Bush nominees any guarantees but he will allow senators to make the final decision.

"We will provide them an opportunity for the vote, but I would hope the Senate would show its common sense and would vote against that particular proposal," said Daschle, D-S.D.

The GOP originally asked for guaranteed Senate votes on all Supreme Court and federal appellate court nominees, and elimination of the secret veto process for some judicial nominations, but Daschle refused to go along with all three.

The Republicans then modified their request on Thursday to just guaranteed Supreme Court votes.

The Senate will vote on the Supreme Court provision, and on reorganizing the chamber, before they leave for the July 4th holiday, Daschle said.

Democrats control the Senate by a 50-49 margin. Sen. Jim Jeffords of Vermont threw the chamber to the Democrats when he defected from the Republican Party to become the Senate's sole independent.

Daschle agreed to another Republican request: to make the senatorial veto process — called blue slips — public instead of private, as it has been in the past. "We certainly oppose private blue slips, and I'm prepared to incorporate the public blue slip policy in the organizing resolution itself," Daschle said.

While the Senate Judiciary Committee has never kept a Supreme Court nominee from coming to a vote in modern history, the resolution would render the committee powerless to stop a future Supreme Court nominee no matter what the controlling party thinks.

"In essence, what their proposal would do is to create a 100-member judiciary committee, bypassing, if they wish, the Judiciary Committee itself. We're not prepared to do that," Daschle said.

The provisions would only be binding on Congress until January 2003. It would also be negated if Republicans took back control of the chamber, which would force senators to vote on a new organizing resolution.

The two sides also agreed that Democrats will gain a one-seat majority on each Senate committee, and the size of committees will be expanded to accommodate the one-seat Democratic edge. All Republicans will keep their committee assignments, and committee funding and space agreements negotiated at the beginning of the year will stay in effect as well.