Robert Novak reported in a Saturday column:
Kavanaugh and Boyle are not included in the bipartisan compromise on confirmation. If Democrats refuse to end debate on them, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist is expected to invoke the "nuclear option" to confirm them by majority vote.
This would be a blatant attempt to break the deal, reached just weeks ago, in which a bipartisan group of 14 Senators (notably, not including Frist) promised:
. . . to oppose the rules changes in the 109th Congress, which we understand to be any amendment to or interpretation of the Rules of the Senate that would force a vote on a judicial nomination by means other than unanimous consent or Rule XXII.
In plain English, that meant taking the nuclear option off the table. And the deal did not condition this “no nukes” pledge on any promise to refrain from filibustering Boyle or Kavanaugh, a la the promises on Owen, Brown and Pryor.
Is this just one conservative columnist’s attempt to pressure Frist to try to break the deal—or does Frist really think he can muscle the seven Republican dealmakers into going back on their word? Worse, does he know that some of them never meant to keep their word in the first place?
