Republicans Stoke an Old Fire: Judicial Nominations
By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG
Published: May 8, 2006
WASHINGTON, May 7 — Republicans are itching for a good election-year fight. Now they are about to get one: a reprise of last year's Senate showdown over judges.
It has been a year since a bipartisan group of 14 senators, the Gang of 14, reached a compromise that smoothed the way for confirmation of President Bush's judicial nominees, including two Supreme Court justices. Conservatives, eager to stir some enthusiasm among their base in an otherwise gloomy election year, have spent months prodding the Senate majority leader, Bill Frist, to take up candidates left out of that deal.
Mr. Frist, of Tennessee, is doing just that. On Tuesday, the Senate Judiciary Committee will hold a hearing on the confirmation of Brett M. Kavanaugh, a White House aide, whose nomination to a federal appeals court has been stalled for three years. Mr. Frist has promised a vote on Mr. Kavanaugh this month. Conservatives are also pushing for a vote on an even more contentious nominee, Judge Terrence W. Boyle, a longtime federal district judge in North Carolina.
With Democrats promising to question Mr. Kavanaugh extensively and threatening to block Judge Boyle by filibuster, Republicans say they could not be happier.
"A good fight on judges does nothing but energize our base," said Senator John Thune, Republican of South Dakota, who made judicial nominations a theme of his 2004 campaign against Tom Daschle, the former Democratic leader. "Right now our folks are feeling a little flat. They need a reason to get engaged, and fights over judges will do that."...
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/08/washington/08judges.html
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