Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is ruling out the use of the "nuclear option" against Senate Republicans in the event they decide to filibuster President Obama's judicial nominees, reports our CQ colleague Kathleen Hunter.
"There is no way that I would employ or use the nuclear option. I want every Republican to hear that," Reid told reporters at a Friday morning breakfast in Washington sponsored by the Christian Science Monitor.
Reid was referring to a parliamentary strategy requiring the support of only a simple Senate majority that then-Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, a Republican, threatened to use in 2005 to eliminate the Democrats' ability to filibuster President George W. Bush's circuit court picks.
Back then, Reid and other Senate Democrats countered with threats to hamstring the Senate with their own procedural moves if Frist went nuclear. On May 23, 2005, the day before Frist planned to make his move, a "Gang of 14" senators -- seven Republicans and seven Democrats -- struck a deal on judicial nominations among themselves that took the nuclear option off the table.
"The nuclear option was the most important issue I'd ever worked on in my entire career, because if that had gone forward, it would have destroyed the Senate as we know it," Reid said.
We'll have to wait and see how Republicans will respond to Reid's conciliatory gesture. They've already threatened to filibuster Obama's nominations from states with at least one GOP senator if Reid tries to engineer a confirmation vote without the support of GOP home state senators.
Obama's one and only circuit court nominee -- David F. Hamilton of Indiana for the 7th Circuit -- has the requisite support of Indiana Republican Sen. Richard G. Lugar. But Republicans are now saying that Republican home state senator support is not necessarily enough.
Reid also said that Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. misled the Senate during his 2005 Senate Judiciary confirmation hearing.
"Roberts didn't tell us the truth," Reid said.
Reid said he looked forward to confirming judges who are more liberal than Bush's picks.
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