Washington – The 14 moderate U.S. senators who united last spring to preserve the right to block judicial confirmations said they remained united Thursday, though on shaky ground, over Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito.
Senators who emerged from a meeting of the so-called Gang of 14 said they hadn’t lost members, even though two in the group earlier this week said they oppose a filibuster of Alito.
“I think what came out of the meeting that is most important is that we haven’t lost two,” Colorado Sen. Ken Salazar, one of seven Democrats in the alliance, said after the meeting. “The 14 are still together.”
“We all affirmed that our agreement is alive and well,” said another member, Sen. Joe Lieberman, D-Conn.
“I’m very favorably disposed toward” Alito, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., told The Associated Press, “but the process that we set up, the 14 of us, is going to be followed, and that’s periodic meetings and evaluations.”
The meeting Thursday was the first for the group, which also has seven Republicans, since President Bush nominated Alito on Monday.
Senate Judiciary Committee leaders said Thursday that they plan to begin confirmation hearings Jan. 9, with a vote by the full Senate targeted for Jan. 20. Bush had wanted the new justice seated by year’s end, but the committee’s chairman, Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., said it “simply wasn’t possible” to move that quickly.
The Gang of 14 came together in May after Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist threatened a vote on eliminating the right to filibuster judicial appointees. Frist’s proposal was referred to as the “nuclear option.”
The group agreed to uphold the right to filibuster some judicial nominees under “extraordinary circumstances” in exchange for up-or-down votes on others.
Earlier this week, two Republicans in the Gang of 14 – Sens. Mike DeWine of Ohio and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina – said they saw no “extraordinary circumstances” in Alito’s nomination that would allow a filibuster.
Both DeWine and Graham largely stood by that position Thursday. But each said in interviews with The Denver Post that if another member of the Gang of 14 thought there were extraordinary circumstances, they would be willing to listen to arguments for a filibuster.
“My position has always been if one of my colleagues believes extraordinary circumstances exist in their eyes, I will sit down and talk about it,” Graham said. “If someone within (the Gang of 14) thinks (Alito is) an ideologue, I’m willing to listen,” but a filibuster by someone outside the group simply on the grounds that Alito is too conservative shouldn’t be allowed, he added.
DeWine said he also would listen to someone within the Gang of 14 arguing that extraordinary circumstances exist. But he said he couldn’t imagine any information coming out that would meet those criteria.
“It’s hard for me to envision how he could be filibustered,” said DeWine, who faces a tough re-election campaign in his state.
The Gang of 14’s unity – or lack of it – could have an impact on whether Alito is confirmed, as well as whether the Senate preserves the right to filibuster other court nominees.
While cutting off a filibuster in progress would require 60 Senate votes, forcing the GOP to recruit some Democrats, the nuclear option would take only a simple majority of 51 votes.
Republicans have 55 seats in the Senate, plus the tie-breaker vote of Vice President Dick Cheney. Subtract the seven Republicans in the Gang of 14, and that leaves only 49 votes.
But the GOP would have enough votes for the nuclear option if two or more in the gang defected.
DeWine said Tuesday that if there were an attempt to filibuster, he would join with Republicans in the nuclear option.
No one at Thursday’s meeting argued that there already were grounds for a filibuster, DeWine said.
In the end, it could be irrelevant whether DeWine and Graham defect, said political analyst Norman Ornstein of the American Enterprise Institute, a Washington think tank.
“Democrats are not going to filibuster if it looks like there are going to be four or five Democrats who see Alito as a reasonable guy and if Alito comes across as a nondoctrinaire person,” Ornstein said.
But he added that if Democrats do filibuster Alito, Frist is likely to feel enormous pressure from the right to eliminate the filibuster, at which point the Gang of 14 could again become crucial.
