In a deal by centrist U.S Senators a compromise was reached Monday night that cleared the way for confirmation of many ofPresident Bush’s stalled judicial nominees, left others in limbo and preserved venerable filibuster rules. Read about it here:

Under the terms, Democrats agreed to allow final confirmation votes for Priscilla Owen, Janice Rogers Brown and William Pryor, appeals court nominees they have long blocked. There is “no commitment to vote for or against” the filibuster against two other conservatives named to the appeals court, Henry Saad and William Myers.

The agreement said future judicial nominees should “only be filibustered under extraordinary circumstances,” with each senator — presumably the Democrats — holding the discretion to decide when those conditions had been met. Officials said the pact was intended to cover the Supreme Court as well as other levels of the judicary.

Apart from the judicial nominees named in the agreement, Reid said Democrats would clear the way for votes on David McKeague, Richard Griffin and Susan Neilson, all named to the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals.

Democratic officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, suggested that two other appeals court nominees whose named were omitted from the written agreement — White House staff secretary Brett Kavanaugh and Pentagon lawyer William Haynes — might be jettisoned. Republicans said they knew of no such understanding.

A lot give and very little take from the RIGHT side of the aisle.

The Republican “centrist”brokers (some are calling them turncoats) may have achieved a compromise but most are now damaged goods in the Republican Party – in particular John McCain and Lindsey Graham. Actually, those are dead meat for any further political ascendency. In fact, they may have trouble getting a good seat at the next Republican National Convention.

But, the President achieves an up or down vote on a number of blocked nominees and Democrats really achieve the status quo filibuster rules (with a little curtailment) – a NET SMALL PLUS for President Bush.

A BIG PLUS for the federal judiciary. But, time will tell about other conservative nominees

H/T: Huffington Post

Update #1

Patterico has the text of the compromise agreement:

MEMORANDUM OF UNDERSTANDING ON JUDICIAL NOMINATIONS

We respect the diligent, conscientious efforts, to date, rendered to the Senate by Majority Leader Frist and Democratic Leader Reid. This memorandum confirms an understanding among the signatories, based upon mutual trust and confidence, related to pending and future judicial nominations in the 109th Congress.

This memorandum is in two parts. Part I relates to the currently pending judicial nominees; Part II relates to subsequent individual nominations to be made by the President and to be acted upon by the Senate’s Judiciary Committee.

We have agreed to the following:

Part I: Commitments on Pending Judicial Nominations

A. Votes for Certain Nominees. We will vote to invoke cloture on the following judicial nominees: Janice Rogers Brown (D.C. Circuit), William Pryor (11th Circuit), and Priscilla Owen (5th Circuit).

B. Status of Other Nominees. Signatories make no commitment to vote for or against cloture on the following judicial nominees: William Myers (9th Circuit) and Henry Saad (6th Circuit).

Part II: Commitments for Future Nominations

A. Future Nominations. Signatories will exercise their responsibilities under the Advice and Consent Clause of the United States Constitution in good faith. Nominees should only be filibustered under extraordinary circumstances, and each signatory must use his or her own discretion and judgment in determining whether such circumstances exist.

B. Rules Changes. In light of the spirit and continuing commitments made in this agreement, we commit to oppose the rules changes in the 109th Congress, which we understand to be any amendment to or interpretation of the Rules of the Senate that would force a vote on a judicial nomination by means other than unanimous consent or Rule XXII.

We believe that, under Article II, Section 2, of the United States Constitution, the word “Advice” speaks to consultation between the Senate and the President with regard to the use of the President’s power to make nominations. We encourage the Executive branch of government to consult with members of the Senate, both Democratic and Republican, prior to submitting a judicial nomination to the Senate for consideration.

Such a return to the early practices of our government may well serve to reduce the rancor that unfortunately accompanies the advice and consent process in the Senate.

We firmly believe this agreement is consistent with the traditions of the United States Senate that we as Senators seek to uphold.

Update #2

The Republicans Who Dealed:

McCain, DeWine, Snowe, Warner, Graham, Collins (update: Chafee who is not present)

Update #3

Comments around the Conservative Blogosphere:

Hugh Hewitt:

It is impossible to say whether this is a “terrible” deal, a “bad” deal, or a very, very marginally “ok” deal, but it surely is not a good deal. Not one dime more for the NRSC from me unless and until the Supreme Court nominee gets confirmed, and no other filibusters develop. I won’t spend money on a caucus supporting organization when the caucus can’t deliver a majority. Mark Kennedy and other Senate candidates with spines, but not for the NRSC.

Captain Ed at Captain’s Quarters:

What does all this tell us?

1. Saad got tossed under the bus, although it may come from a failed confirmation vote rather than a filibuster, no matter what Reid says. If Reid demands a filibuster and all seven Democratic signatories support it, it will qualify as “bad faith,” resulting in a resurrection of the Byrd option. I think all seven GOP signatories agreed to oppose Saad in a floor vote.

2. Myers may also have been tossed under the bus, although it looks from this that it may still be left to the individual conscience of the Senators.

3. Other than that, it appears that we have returned to status quo ante with an implicit admission from the GOP that filibusters are legitimate, and a matching one from the Democrats that they abused it. “Extraordinary circumstances” will probably be deciphered as ethics problems and not ideology, although the language after Part II-B seems to warn the White House about nominating strict ideologues to the bench from now on.

What we don’t know is how this affects the rest of the nominees in the pipeline. One has to assume that the agreement explicitly names all those considered to have issues, and that all other nominees will be treated in accordance with the new rules from the centrists. That will prevail for as long as they can remain united in defense of their agreement.

In short, this could be merely objectionable and not a debacle, depending on how the GOP signatories interpret “extraordinary circumstances”. One must suspect that this has already been defined confidentially within the group, and like Sean Rushton surmises, ideology doesn’t play a part in it any longer. Under no circumstances can this be seen as a good deal for the Senate majority or for Constitutional rule. The net effect is that an even smaller minority in the Senate has hijacked the confirmation process than we saw during the filibusters — and like all tyrannies, we can only hope for benevolent despotism rather than disaster.

And we can thank Bill Frist for his lack of leadership and resolve for taking a majority and turning it into a minority. Not One Dime for the NRSC as long as Frist remains majority leader, or for the Seven Dwarves ever. Patterico is on board with that pledge as well.

Michelle Malkin:

Related: Breaking: Filibuster compromise
– Patterico makes a pledge
– Round-ups: Joe Gandelman, Pardon My English, Conservative Outpost
– More Photoshop-inion from Slublog: Frist as Chamberlain.
– Captain Ed’s sober deconstruction of the deal and a vow: “Not One Dime for the NRSC as long as Frist remains majority leader, or for the Seven Dwarves ever.”
– Hugh Hewitt: “I won’t spend money on a caucus supporting organization when the caucus can’t deliver a majority.”
– Mitch Berg’s open letter to Sen. Bill Frist: “You suck”

***
Let the MSM drooling over the “maverick” moderates begin…

Knight-Ridder: “The negotiations were led by McCain, a Republican maverick known for bucking Bush and his GOP leaders…”

AP: “The deal was struck around the table in the office of McCain, the Arizona senator who ran against Bush in 2000 and must now answer to angry conservatives. His advisers say they suspect that the most partisan conservatives were not going to back McCain anyhow, and that the deal bolsters his image as a maverick.”

LA Times: “In a rare act of compromise on Capitol Hill, a maverick group of seven Democrats and seven Republicans reached an agreement today that forced the Senate leadership to stand down from a confrontation over President Bush’s nominations to the federal courts.

A diarist at RedState bites back:

Thanks, John McCain. Thanks for showing us that there really are worse things than allowing 45 Senators to control a body of 100. We could, for instance, have 12 Senators control a body of 100, which is exactly what we saw happen tonight with the “compromise” solution authored and championed by everymedia’s favorite “Maverick.” Forgive us if we’re less than thrilled at the prospect that this “centrist” coalition (including Robert Byrd, of all people!) wields so much power.

***
Power Line’s Paul Mirengoff sets Sen. Lindsay Graham straight:

I heard Senator Graham claim that he still has the right to vote to change the rules if the Democrats abuse filibusters. But, in light of the language of the deal, this statement appears to be disingenuous. Graham doesn’t get that right (which he probably doesn’t want anyway) until the next Congress. The Democrats get to skate past their latest defeat at the polls and hope for better things in 2006. Why didn’t Graham and his crew simply back off from the “nuclear” option for the time being, and see if the Democrats started behaving more responsibly? The comparative wisdom of that approach is apparent from the fact that Graham is trying to pretend that this is what he did.

I’m also doubtful that, even if the Republicans hold their own or gain seats in 2006, they will put an end to the filibusters. As noted above, they just don’t have it in them.

The claim by Senator Graham and others that we need to get this issue behind us in order to proceed with the Senate’s business is laughable. The Democrats will be emboldened by this “compromise” and will continue to obstruct. This Congress will accomplish little beyond what it already has, and that isn’t much.

A short list of possible Bush nominees to the United States Supreme Court is being reported in the Washington Times here:

Judge Michael W. McConnell on the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals

Judge Edith Hollan Jones, who practiced law in Texas and now sits on the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans.

Samuel Alito, a 3rd U.S. Circuit judge from Philadelphia.

J. Michael Luttig of the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals, considered one of the most conservative judges on the federal bench.

J. Harvie Wilkinson III, also on the 4th Circuit, who is considered more moderate than Judge Luttig but could be opposed by liberals over his opposition of affirmative action.

Emilio Garza of the 5th Circuit, who would give Mr. Bush the chance to name the first Hispanic justice, but whose conservative views on abortion could prompt liberal outcry.

Flap’s bet is for at least two appointments this summer to replace Chief Justice Rehnquist and Justice Sandra Day O’Connor.

Senator Bill Frist is calling up Justice Priscilla Owen.

Read a biography of this Justice of the Texas Supreme Court here.

Bring on the confirmation debate.

Negotiations between the Democrats and GOP to avert filibusters on President Bush’s judicial appointments have broken off. Read the story in the Washington Post (free registration required) here:

Senate Minority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) announced yesterday that he and Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) had broken off negotiations aimed at averting a showdown over President Bush’s judicial nominees, moving the Senate to the brink of a constitutional confrontation and a battle that holds peril for both political parties and the White House.

Reid, emerging from an afternoon meeting with Frist, declared that the two leaders had reached an impasse after weeks of talks. “Negotiations are over,” he said. “It’ll have to be decided on the Senate floor.”

The fact is there never were any serious negotiations.

Bring on the nominees (Priscilla Owens and Janice Rogers Brown) and if the Democrats filibuster, then change the Senate rules.

Frist did not speak with reporters but issued a statement. “Republicans believe in the regular order of fair up and down votes and letting the Senate decide yes or no on judicial confirmations free from procedural gimmicks like the filibuster,” he said, “and I hope Senator Reid and others know our door is always open to reasonable proposals for fair up or down votes for judicial nominees.”

There is still a chance that a confrontation can be avoided, if a bipartisan group of senators finds support for a compromise. The group, led by Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Ben Nelson (D-Neb.), had deferred to Frist and Reid. But now it plans to intensify discussions in hopes of attracting half a dozen colleagues from each party to agree to a deal that would block any change in the Senate rules while allowing for filibusters only in extraordinary circumstances. The White House has been encouraging key Republican senators to support a change in the rules.

Don’t hold your breath!

Frist will put up the nominees tomorrow – I hope!

The confrontation has been brewing for weeks and could begin tomorrow, when Frist puts forward two judicial nominees, Janice Rogers Brown of California and Priscilla Owen of Texas. Democrats have vowed to filibuster both to prevent their confirmation.

At some point this week or next week, Frist is expected to seek a change in Senate rules that would bar the use of the filibuster for judicial nominations. That change has been dubbed the “nuclear option,” because of its potential to disrupt the Senate and shatter what little comity remains between Republicans and Democrats .

It usually takes 60 votes to shut off debate in the Senate, but the change contemplated by the Republicans would allow a simple majority to stop a filibuster on judicial nominations. Republicans say Democrats have abused the filibuster to block judges who enjoy majority support; Democrats argue that changing the rules represents a drastic curtailment of the rights of the minority in the Senate.

Read the rest of the article here.

H/T Huffington Post

It is like playing Poker – Let’s See the Cards Gentlemen!

Read Robert Novak’s Column here to find the answer:

On May 5, the U.S. Judicial Conference in Washington received a request from a Mike Rice of Oakland, Calif., for the financial disclosure records of U.S. Appeals Court Judge Edith Jones (5th Circuit) of Houston. A 20-year veteran on the bench, Jones is a perennial possibility for the U.S. Supreme Court. The demand for her personal records is part of a major intelligence raid preceding momentous confirmation fights in the Senate.

Jones was not alone as a target, and Rice is not just a nosy citizen. He and Craig Varoga, a former aide to Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, are partners in a California political consulting firm. Their May 5 petition requested financial information on 30 appellate judges in all but one of the country’s judicial circuits, including nine widely mentioned Supreme Court possibilities. Varoga & Rice’s client: NARAL Pro-Choice America.

Nobody can recall any previous mass request for such disclosures by federal judges. This intelligence raid is financed by the abortion lobby, but it looks to Republicans like a front for Reid and other senators who will consider President Bush’s appointments for Supreme Court nominations. But Reid told me that he had heard nothing about this, adding: “It’s ridiculous. What do we have Senate committees for?”

Varoga, a former communications director for Reid, was national field director for Gen. Wesley Clark’s 2004 presidential campaign. While Rice bills himself as an “expert” on “state public-records laws,” his special field has been negative research probing the background of political foes. Varoga & Rice promises “public records research” that “can help you win elections, contracts and lawsuits.” But compiling financial profiles of judicial nominees plows new ground…

Guess who?

Yes….. the Pro-Abortion folks and the Senate Minority Leader.

There is nothing wrong with opposition research.

However, let this be a lesson to the Right…… these peeps are playing for keeps .

Read more about Judge Jones here.

Read what Captain Ed over at Captain’s Quarter’s has to say about this here.

California Supreme Court Justice Janice Rogers Brown

Sen. Charles Schumer, a leading Democrat in the fight over judicial nominees, urged President Bush to intervene and rein in the strongest conservative critics of Democratic opposition to some candidates:

Schumer, D-N.Y., delivered his party’s weekly radio address Saturday, in which he decried “a whiff of extremism in the air the likes of which we haven’t seen in decades.”

Without naming any, Schumer criticized “small groups … trying to undermine the age-old checks and balances that the Founding Fathers placed at the center of the Constitution.”

Democrats have blocked 10 of Bush’s appellate court choices with the threat of filibusters, which means those nominees would need 60 votes to be confirmed. Republicans are considering using their majority to change rules to require a simple majority vote for confirmation…

Hugh Hewitt has the hypocrisy of Schumer here:

A day after Senator Uriah Reid (D-Nev) brands the president a “loser” and then apologizes, a week after Senator Ken Salazar (D-Colo) labels Focus on the Family as the anti-Christ and then apologizes, and a month after Senator Robert Byrd (D-WVA) brands the Senate GOP as Hitler’s heirs, Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY) appeals to President Bush to bring moderation to the Republican side of the debate on the filibusters. Now that is rich. Wildly amusing and ineffective, but rich.

Especially when you consider this account of Senator Reid’s appearance before high school students yesterday:

“Reid took students through a primer of the five most-disputed judicial nominees, arguing some were opposed to the 1973 Roe v. Wade case legalizing abortion. He charged others with trying to dismantle government programs like Social Security.

‘I don’t want them. I think they’re bad people,’ Reid said of the nominees

He described California Supreme Court Justice Janice Rogers Brown, one of the Bush nominees Republicans will probably float first for approval, as an African-American opposed by the Congressional Black Caucus.

‘She is a woman who wants to take us back to the Civil War days,’ Reid said.”

On the appaling scale, accusing a distinguished African-American jurist of wanting a return to the era of slavery is simply reprehensible. Perhaps Senator Schumer would like to issue a statement on Senator Reid’s disgusting attack on Justice Brown and the other nominees?

Indeed!

In the Democrat’s weekly radio address today former New York Governor Mario Cuomo warns:

Senate Republicans “are threatening to claim ownership of the Supreme Court and other federal courts, hoping to achieve political results on subjects like abortion, stem cells, the environment and civil rights that they cannot get from the proper political bodies.”

“How will they do this? By destroying the so-called filibuster, a vital part of the 200-year-old system of checks and balances in the Senate,” Cuomo said.

“The Republicans say it would assure dominance by the majority in the Senate,” he said. “That sounds democratic until you remember that the Bill of Rights was adopted, as James Madison pointed out, to protect all of Americans from what he called the `tyranny of the majority.'”

“It sounds nearly absurd when you learn that the minority Democrats in the Senate actually represent more Americans than the majority Republicans do,” Cuomo said.

Someone should remind the good Governor that there is no Constitutional “right” to filibuster and that each house of the Congress has the right to set their own rules (by majority vote). Article 1 of the Constitution gives each house of Congress the power to determine its own rules. Senate Rule XXII establishes the necessity of 60 votes to close off debate.

William Kristol in the May 9 Weekly Standard has a good piece explaining the historical and consitutional precedences and distinctions.

Flaps’ take: Up or Down Vote Please!

These folks from MoveOn.org really need to get a life.

The Ventura County Star has the story here:

“It ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”

So said Ventura resident Tamara Coe about the filibuster process as she stood outside the county Government Center on Wednesday with more than 30 other protesters angered over Senate Republicans’ plans to change the rules involving judicial nominations.

The Ventura event was part of a nationwide protest organized by the political action committee MoveOn PAC, part of the liberal group MoveOn.org. Demonstrations also were held in Los Angeles, Orange County, Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo…

Just give the Presidential judicial nominees an up or down vote!

Ted Olson former Solicitor General of the United States has this biting, but learned commentary on our independent judiciary:

….We might start by getting a firm grip on the reality that our independent judiciary is the most respected branch of our government, and the envy of the world…..

…This is not to say that some judges don’t render bad decisions. Arrogant and misguided jurists exist, just as such qualities may be found in the rest of the population, and our citizens and elected representatives are fully justified in speaking out in forceful disagreement with judges who substitute their personal values or private social instincts for sound jurisprudential principles. But the remedies for these aberrations consist of reasoned, even sharp, criticism, appeals to higher courts, and selection of candidates for judicial positions that respect limits on the roles of judges….

…No discussion of the judiciary should close without reference to the shambles that the Senate confirmation process has become. It does no good to speculate about how or when the disintegration began, which political interest has been the most culpable, or the point at which the appointment of judges became completely dysfunctional. That sort of debate is both endless and futile. The only hope for an end to the downward spiral is for the combatants to lay down their arms; stop using judicial appointments to excite special-interest constituencies and political fund-raising; move forward with votes on qualified, responsible and respected nominees so that those who have the support of a majority of the Senate can be confirmed, as contemplated by the Constitution; and remove the rancor and gamesmanship from the judicial selection process.

We expect dignity, wisdom, decency, civility, integrity and restraint from our judges. It is time to exercise those same characteristics in our dealings with, and commentary on, those same judges–from their appointment and confirmation, to their decision-making once they take office.

Hopefully, we will have some votes soon on the appeals court judges (Texas judge Priscilla Owen and California judge Janice Rogers Brown) voted out of the Senate Judiciary Committe last week.

I wonder if North Carolina judge Terrence W. Boyle, a former aide to retired Senator Jesse Helms, will ever get a hearing in the Judiciary Committee?

Come on Senators …… vote yea or nay!