Colorado voters sent Sen. Ken Salazar to Congress as a moderate who would work to overcome the capital’s partisan stalemates, and no sooner than he gets to Washington he is knee-deep in the partisan swamp over judicial nominations.
Part of his predicament is a thicket of his own making: He made some sensible campaign remarks in 2004 that are dogging him in the highly charged environment of 2005. To avoid the trap being set by interest groups on both sides of the issue, Salazar is among those beseeching Senate leaders to find a compromise that will allow the Senate to give proper consideration to President Bush’s controversial nominees without becoming a GOP rubber stamp.
Just three months into his term, Salazar has been thrust into the national spotlight with dizzying force. Democrats are counting on his being in the fold if the GOP attempts to change the Senate rules that made it possible for them to filibuster and block 10 judicial nominees (out of 215) in the last term.
Conservatives made it easy for Salazar to pick sides. After all, threatening to change the Senate rules is such a drastic step that even the Republicans refer to it as the “nuclear option.”
Salazar’s angst comes from comments he made during last year’s campaign when he said he prefers giving judicial appointments an up-or-down vote rather than filibuster them to death. He’s abandoned that position in the face of the nuclear threat, and the ensuing ruckus has prompted him to seek out an independent position rather than mindlessly aligning himself with fellow Democrats. Salazar wrote a letter Tuesday to Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., and Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., urging that the Senate maintain its longstanding rules while favoring a break in the logjam over nominees.
Frist is being urged by many to put aside the nuclear option in favor of a less explosive solution. But party leaders are being pressured to do battle by fire-breathing interest groups that seem quite content to use the issue to fuel fundraising.
When Vice President Dick Cheney chimed in, you knew the partisan lines were drawn – when’s the last time he brokered a compromise?
Spokesman Cody Wertz explains Salazar’s shift this way: “He preferred an up-or-down vote, and he gets here and his test (for judges) is, “What’s best for Colorado families?” Then Republicans want to break these rules that have been around since the Senate has existed. This nuclear option breaks the rules in the middle of the game.”
While that reasoning wasn’t enough to satisfy the protesters who unaccountably picketed Salazar’s wife’s Dairy Queen last Sunday, a new poll finds that Americans oppose the rules change by a 2-to-1 ratio. Nearly half the Republicans surveyed oppose the change.
Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del., floated a compromise earlier this week, saying Democrats might stomach voting on five of the president’s repeat nominees if Republicans agree to pull back the two most “extreme.” Salazar would like to see a solution that goes even beyond this group of nominees. He told us yesterday that Frist and Reid might want to consider empaneling a group of distinguished former senators who could recommend changes to the current nomination process that avoids these bitter stalemates. With the possibility of one or more Supreme Court vacancies looming large this summer, a solution could hardly come too soon. We assume it would be welcome at the White House.
It’s past time for the Senate to find a way around the nuclear option. Frist and Reid should ignore the extremists and find an approach that will preserve Senate rules and advance the president’s right for fair consideration of his nominees.
