Frist Offers "Fair Compromise" On Judges

And I'm not complaining about it.

In exchange for giving up filibustering judicial nominees, the Republicans would offer...

a) Guaranteed up-or-down votes on nominations for Circuit Courts of Appeals and Supreme Court nominees.

b) Guaranteed debate time of up to 100 hours for those nominees.

c) Guaranteed reporting of nominees from the Senate Judiciary Committee to the Senate floor.

d) Guaranteed protection of the legislative filibuster.

A-hem.

No comment.

NRO also prints the whole Frist speech laying out the, um, compromise.

NRO speculates that the Democrats will only consider this, errrm, compromise if the GOP agrees to withdraw some/most of its current nominees (i.e., allow the previous filibusters to succeed, forever), but Frist claims he will not budge on them.

It seems to me that with a couple of exceptions -- Janice Brown first among them -- that might not actually be a bad trade. Yes, the previous nominees are qualified and should be allowed to serve, but... if we really could end filibusters on all future nominees, that might not be a half-bad deal at all.

"There's a war on" Update: Jason reminds me that none of this is important. Why? Well, read the slugline of the update, dope. There's a war on. Or had you forgotten?

posted by Ace at 03:02 PM

| Access Comments