Extraordinary Doings
Hard as it was to believe, a bipartisan group of senators actually did something last week that a majority of the public has been demanding for years: They worked together . And it wasn't a cakewalk, either, given that the battle over how to handle judicial nominations had become "as intense as it was during Bill Clinton's impeachment," as Republican negotiator Susan Collins described it. The group had to work around its own leaders, who had spent so much time paying homage to the left and to the right that they had lost any ability to compromise. Then throw in the more than $10 million spent by interest groups, and the deal seems like the proverbial happy ending.
Granted, the honeymoon looked as if it was over for a moment last week when Democrats delayed the vote on the nomination of John Bolton as U.N. ambassador. But not so fast. Bolton is still likely to get confirmed. Call me Pollyanna, but count me hopeful that the truce on judges is a good thing. Sure, it's based on that rarest of commodities in politics these days: trust. After all, the agreement said that judicial filibusters should be used only under "extraordinary circumstances" --a term deliberately left undefined. What it requires is an understanding that Democrats won't caricature President Bush's nominees for the sole purpose of handing him a defeat. It's a test for all those liberal interest groups out there ready to pounce at any sign of a Supreme Court retirement. And it's a test for the right, too--for those who have been overeager to change the rules to make sure they can pack the courts. "Nobody won," one of the dealmakers, conservative Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, told me. "If your goal was to jam it to the Democrats, you lost. If your goal was to make George Bush an all-out loser, you lost."
"Bailout, betrayal." Of course, the deal was dissed by both the left and the right. "For some groups, the test is not whether you agree with their issue," Graham says, "but whether you will hate the people they hate." On the left, the Bush nominees have been called extremists and worse, despite some who have been re-elected by margins of more than 75 percent. On the right, the search is on for litmus-test judges who fit a certain mold--antiabortion jurists who believe the courts should not rule on things like gay marriage. James Dobson, the founder of Focus on the Family, disowned the deal as "a complete bailout and betrayal by a cabal of Republicans," warning that voters will remember "both Democrats and Republicans who betrayed their trust."
Funny, but the president didn't portray it that way. He called the deal "progress." Why? First, because he had to make it seem like a win for his side. And second, his advisers understood that congressional fighting cheered on by outside special interests was keeping their agenda at bay--not to mention angering the public. Indeed, a CBS poll last week showed approval ratings for Congress at a dismal 29 percent--the lowest in almost a decade. "If you're a conservative or you're a liberal or you're a moderate and you think the American public likes what we're doing up here," Graham says, "you're on the wrong planet." What has Congress done this year? Intervened in the Schiavo mess and argued about appeals court judges. No wonder the same poll found that 68 percent of Americans believe members don't share their priorities.
That's hardly good news for those presidential candidates who now reside in Congress. And they were all over the lot on this deal: John McCain, leading the way to compromise. (He had little to lose, of course, since conservatives don't like him much because he took them on during the 2000 campaign.) Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, who fought the conservative fight and then found himself in an odd position--publicly criticizing a deal he also found he had no choice but to support. (Conservatives won't blame Frist; they blame McCain.)
All this drama is just a prelude to the moment the president names his first Supreme Court nominee. The message to the White House: Consult with some senators beforehand. "What I would ask the White House and the Senate leadership to do is to talk through problems," advises Graham. "That way, you don't have the country in an uproar and us fighting in public acting like third graders." Now wouldn't that be an "extraordinary circumstance"?
This story appears in the June 6, 2005 print edition of U.S. News & World Report.
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