Concept of Compromise Is Pushed Off Senate's Center Stage

Lyndon Johnson must be spinning in his grave.

Bob Dole, Howard Baker and George Mitchell must be spinning in the comfy leather chairs of the big-name law firms they call home these days.

Is it possible that any of these titanic Senate majority leaders from years past would abdicate responsibility for resolving the confrontation over judicial nominations, as the job's current occupant, Tennessee Republican Bill Frist, has done?

Nothing may be more remarkable about this Senate showdown than who is trying to defuse it. Frist, ostensibly the man with the gavel, has thrown up his hands and insisted he cannot reach an agreement with Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) over the Democrats' use of the filibuster, a procedural maneuver that allows 41 senators to prevent a floor vote, against some of President Bush's judicial nominees.

That's left an assortment of mavericks, malcontents, back-benchers, gray eminences and ideological heretics from the two parties to try to settle an unnecessary crisis that could fundamentally alter the Senate's character.

Over the last week, a floating group of about a dozen Democratic and Republican senators, including Republicans John McCain of Arizona and John W. Warner of Virginia, and Democrats Ben Nelson of Nebraska and Mark Pryor of Arkansas, have neared an agreement that would preempt a Republican effort this week to ban the filibuster for judicial nominations.

Under the deal, at least six Republicans would commit to voting against the filibuster ban. In return, at least five Democrats would commit to allowing an up-or-down floor vote on five of seven Bush appellate court nominees Democrats have blocked; the Democrats would also commit to using the filibuster against future court nominees only in "extraordinary circumstances."

The tactical brilliance of this deal is that it is self-executing: It would work even if no senators beyond the negotiators supported it. Republicans have 55 Senate seats; that means the GOP could not muster a majority for the filibuster ban if six Republicans opposed it. Democrats control 45 Senate votes (counting Vermont independent James M. Jeffords). If five Democrats dissented, the party could not sustain filibusters against Bush's judicial appointments.