Fight looms if Republicans change Senate rules

By Richard Cowan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Democratic Sen. Robert Byrd warned
on Monday that he would bring the U.S. Senate to a virtual
standstill if Republicans carry out a threat to change its
rules by outlawing filibusters on judicial nominations.

Byrd of West Virginia, a staunch defender of the Senate’s
often arcane rules and procedures, was responding to a comment
by Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, who said Sunday he might
move to restrict filibusters if Democrats try to block the
nomination of Samuel Alito to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Minutes after the Senate returned from a three-week
vacation Byrd challenged Frist, a Tennessee Republican, in an
unusually pointed floor debate.

“If the senator wants a fight, let him try. I’m 88 years
old but I can still fight and fight I will for freedom of
speech,” Byrd said.

Byrd said he did not expect a filibuster against Alito, but
complained, “I’m tired of hearing this threat thrown in our
faces if we decide we want to filibuster.”

The filibuster is a tactic used to indefinitely prolong
debate on the Senate floor. The debate can be stopped if 60
senators vote to do so. The Republicans hold 55 of the Senate’s
100 seats, not necessarily enough to end a filibuster.

“My principle is an up or down vote … that’s all I’m
arguing for, is an up or down vote,” Frist told Byrd.

Byrd shot back, “That’s never been the rule here. Senators
have the right to talk, the right to filibuster.”

If Frist tries to limit that right, “He’s going to see a
real filibuster,” Byrd warned.

The filibuster and the Republican’s so-called “nuclear
option” for limiting it have been hotly debated all year as
senators girded for President George W. Bush’s nominations to
fill Supreme Court vacancies.

Democrats have already blocked some of Bush’s choices of
conservatives to serve as judges on lower courts.

Earlier this year a group of 14 Republican and Democratic
senators reached a pact to reserve the filibuster only for
“extraordinary circumstances.”

The pact held and Democrats did not stage a filibuster this
fall over the Senate’s confirmation of John Roberts as a
replacement for the late Chief Justice William Rehnquist.

The Senate is due in January to begin debate on whether to
confirm Alito to the Supreme Court to replace retiring Justice
Sandra O’Connor.