[Once-Ler]

The Senate can put into existence any rules it wants to, but not if it causes a fundamental change in the actual number needed for confirmation, which the judicial filibuster clearly has.

Then I go back to my original question. If the nuke option is really an option why wait until 2004 to use it?

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

That's a very good question.

The only possible answer, IMHO, is they did not have the votes with 51 GOP senators in the last sessions due to the RINOs, and they do with 55 in this session.

[Once-Ler]

Then I go back to my original question.

Sorry I'm writting on 2 threads at the same time and I got confused. I asked in another thread if the nuke option is a legal option why has it not been used in the 200 year history of the Senate? Why has the Senate required a 2/3rds vote to change rules in the past?

[NeoCaveman]

Then I go back to my original question. If the nuke option is really an option why wait until 2004 to use it?

We didn't have the votes in 2000 or 2002 and before that no one filibustered circuit court nominees. They had been either held up in committee or blue slipped. We may have the votes now because of the Senate seat pick up and Specter may have seen the light. There is nothing quite like a good "quid pro quo". If indeed one has been established.