Racial Politics In Filibuster Flap
As Republicans and Democrats injected racial politics into the struggle over President Bush's judicial nominees, Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid accused President Bush Thursday of trying to "rewrite the Constitution and reinvent reality" in a drive to weaken Senate filibuster rules and install out-of-the-mainstream conservatives on the federal bench.
The bitter words and the racial theme underscored partisan differences while centrists of both parties pursued an elusive compromise.
But the Senate's second-ranking Republican accused Democrats of "unprecedented obstruction" that prevented confirmation votes and upended more than two centuries of tradition.
Democrats such as Reid say banishing the filibuster would have more damaging long-term effects, CBS' Susan Roberts reports.
"If Republicans roll back our rights in this chamber, their will be no check on their power-the radical right wing will be free to pursue any agenda they want," Reid said.
Reid and Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., made their comments on the second day of debate over Bush's stalled nominees and venerable filibuster rules as centrists struggled unsuccessfully for a compromise that could avert a showdown. "I don't know whether we're going to have it in the next hour or not at all, but you have to keep working," said Sen. Ben Nelson, D-Neb., emerging from the closed-door session.
Both parties used staged events off the Senate floor to push racial politics to the forefront.
"Why are they afraid to put a black woman on the court?" asked Bishop Harry Jackson, chairman of a group of black pastors, standing next to Majority Leader Bill Frist at a news conference outside the Capitol. Referring to Janice Rogers Brown, a California Supreme Court judge whom Mr. Bush has named to the federal appeals court, he called her "not only a legal hero for black America, she is a legal hero for all America."
Restricting the ability of Democrats to block final votes on several of Bush's most controversial nominees "would be particularly offensive to people of color," members of the Congressional Black Caucus wrote Frist during the day. "All of the major legislation that today bars racial discrimination in voting, employment and housing was passed after filibusters" were broken, it said.
Brown, a sharecropper's daughter who became the first black woman and most conservative justice on California's Supreme Court, is rapidly becoming a model jurist for U.S. Senate Republicans fighting judicial filibusters. So while another of President Bush's judicial nominees, Texas Supreme Court Justice Priscilla Owen, is likely to be the flashpoint for a showdown over whether Democrats should be able to stop appointments to the nation's highest courts, Brown is being debated just as much on the Senate floor this week.
In many ways, Brown's court rulings and speeches mirror the thinking of Bush and conservatives coast to coast. An outspoken Christian conservative from the segregated South, she supports limits on abortion rights and corporate liability, routinely upholds the death penalty and opposes affirmative action. But some say Brown, who has voted against racial profiling by police and in favor of personal liberties, such as the necessity of a search warrant.
Republicans are threatening to eliminate the Democrats' ability to use filibusters to block Bush's judicial picks, beginning with federal appeals court nominee Priscilla Owen.
Democrats are guilty of "unprecedented obstruction," countered Republican Whip Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, arguing that Mr. Bush's Senate critics had overturned 214 years of tradition by blocking votes on several of the president's conservative candidates.
The day of choreographed debate on the floor unfolded as compromise-minded senators negotiated privately in the office of Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., and leaders of both parties held dueling staged-for-television events designed to court black voters.
Frist did not mention Brown's race in his own remarks. He said Democratic treatment of her nomination was "unnecessary, uncivil. It is injustice. I pledge to you here today that I will do everything in my power to see that it stops."
He made his comments after members of the Congressional Black Caucus said he had declined to meet with them to discuss the issue. The Democratic lawmakers proceeded to a news conference where they released a letter to the Tennessee Republican arguing that his call for a partial ban on judicial filibusters "would be particularly offensive to people of color."
There was irony — as members of the caucus noted — since the historic civil rights legislation of a half-century ago was passed only after supporters overcame filibusters by conservative Southern Democrats and like-minded Republicans.
"The filibuster was systematically used when Senate minority rights meant the denial of the rights of African-Americans," caucus members wrote. "We cannot and will not stand down when Senate minority rights are proposed to be overruled against a Senate minority that seeks to protect the rights of African-Americans."
Frist has set the Senate on the path for a showdown next week on his bid to eliminate the Democrats' ability to filibuster present and future appeals court and Supreme Court nominees. While it takes 60 votes to overcome a filibuster, Republicans intend to supersede the rule by majority vote. With 55 seats, they could afford five defections and still prevail on the strength of Vice President Dick Cheney's ability to break ties.
Democrats have threatened to slow the Senate's business to a crawl if Republicans prevail, and they served up a preview during the day when they invoked a rule that prevented some committees from meeting. And with Frist's timetable calling for the critical votes to be cast next Tuesday and Wednesday, compromise-minded senators in both parties gathered in McCain's office twice during the day.
By agreeing among themselves, any six Republicans and six Democrats would hold the Senate's balance of power, making it impossible for Frist to engineer a change in procedures on one hand, and dooming future filibusters on the other.
"We're making progress but we're not quite there," said Sen. Mark Pryor, D-Ark., who has been involved in the discussions.
Officials in both parties said there were two stumbling blocks.
One involved which of Bush's nominees would be cleared for confirmation and which would continue to be held up. Under discussion when the day began was a plan to allow final votes on Brown as well as Priscilla Owen, named to the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, and William H. Pryor, who received a temporary appointment to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals after Democrats blocked a confirmation vote in Bush's first term. The less controversial 6th Circuit Court nominees, Susan Nielson, Richard Griffin and David McKeague, also would be cleared for votes under the proposal.
On the other hand, the nominations of William G. Myers and Henry Saad would remain stuck.
The other, potentially more difficult area of discussion involved an exchange of "good faith" pledges by lawmakers. Democrats would agree not to filibuster future appeals court or Supreme Court nominees except in extraordinary cases. Republicans would agree not to support any changes in the filibuster procedures, although it was not yet clear what circumstances, if any, would permit them to change their minds.
While Frist and Reid are not party to the discussions, both have been monitoring them. Senate officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Reid had been forceful in private discussions with Democrats, trying to make sure that any compromise would maintain their right to filibuster future Supreme Court nominees while foreclosing Republicans from attempting to change the filibuster procedure.
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