Utahn's move to bench certain?
"But there are lots of traps and snares, and I won't be happy until it is through," said Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, who has worked behind the scenes to bolster support when it appeared the nomination was slipping away. "There is still a lot of bitterness, and there are no sure things."
Griffith's nomination to what is considered to be the second most powerful court in the nation had become bogged down amid the controversy over the use of the filibuster by minority Democrats to thwart President Bush's judicial nominations they considered too conservative or too controversial.
Republicans had threatened the so-called "nuclear" or "constitutional" option to break the filibusters — a changing of the rules so that the 56-44 Republican majority could cut off debate with a 51-vote majority rather than the current 60 votes needed.
A deal between moderates on both sides, announced Monday night, calls for up or down votes on three of the most controversial nominees but not certain others, and a pledge that Democrats will use the filibuster only in the most extreme cases.
Griffith can probably blame Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., for the delayed vote. Reid had stated that Democrats would not filibuster Griffith as a show of good faith during negotiations with the majority over the nuclear option — even though Democrats had some serious problems with Griffith.
According to Hatch, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., wasn't about to have Harry Reid decide which of the nominees was going to "go first."
Frist had already decided the nomination of Priscilla R. Owen of Texas would go first. Owen was confirmed Wednesday by a 56-43 vote, the first beneficiary of the filibuster truce.
"The deal appears to be a positive step, but only time will tell," Hatch said of the deal. "But this is a truce, not a treaty."
And, he adds, Republicans are watching closely, expecting Democrats' definition of "extreme circumstances" will evolve to where they invoke the filibuster on just about anyone who is conservative.
"Any party that will call Patricia Owen a Neanderthal and extreme is going to call anyone Neanderthal and extreme," he said. "She is as reasonable and decent as a person can be."
Hatch expects the truce is tenuous, at best, and that it could come unraveled over the nominations of Brett Cavanaugh and William J. Haynes II, who are not covered by the truce. And if not at that time, then probably when a new Supreme Court justice is nominated, something expected later this summer.
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