Frist has the votes but won't use the "nuclear option" right now.
So, the Dems let a few people through, the urgency of the issue peters out, Frist loses a few of his supposed 51 votes, and the rest of the nominations get blocked. Brilliant.
You are misreading the political dynamics of the situation. It is the Democrats who are between a rock and a hard place. Every time a judicial nomination comes to the Senate floor, the Democrats have to worry that Frist might push the "nuclear" button if they choose to filibuster. And yet if they avoid filibustering, their core special-interest groups will scream bloody murder and accuse them of being spineless wimps.
Every time a nomination comes up, the Democratic Senators will have to try to calculate whether that person is so "extreme" (and can be depicted to the general public as so extreme) as to make it worth the risk of a filibuster which could result in the elimination of all future filibusters. I suspect that a lot of hard-core leftists will have trouble grappling with such nuances.
And every time that Democrats allow a conservative judge to slip through, they'll appear weaker and less unified. The perception will grow that Frist really does have the votes for the nuclear option. And in politics, perception is 90% of reality.
In case you still do not see why this is okay, you may want to read a brief article from the Cato Institute describing how these current "bad" rules are relatively speaking, new.
We need to get the rules back to more like what they were.
Senate Rule History on Filibusters:
http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=3169
So, the Dems let a few people through, the urgency of the issue peters out, Frist loses a few of his supposed 51 votes, and the rest of the nominations get blocked. Brilliant.
Except for the part about the DemonRATs letting a few through, you nailed it. Can anyone name for me the last great Republican Senate leader, because I can't seem to recall any?
According to Senate Rule XXII, Frist needs the vote of "two-thirds of the Senators present and voting..." Unless the Rule means something other than what it clearly and unequivically states, Frist is going to need a lot more than 51 votes to change the rule, perhaps as many as 67.
exactly
If the Democrats ever get 51 votes for filibuster on judicial nominations they can use the nuclear option to make filibuster legal.
Click here to learn what the nuclear option is and how it works.
The nuclear option can be done by a senator. He just proposes a rule change. Gives the Senate 24 hours notice of the exact change and then a majority vote prevails.
Anytime Reid gets 51 votes for the Filibuster of judicial nominees he can make it legal to do so.
This issue should be enough to get republicans to 60 senate seats after 2006