WASHINGTON, Nov. 12 (UPI) -- Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist has warned Democrats that the stronger GOP leadership will not allow the blocking of President Bush's judicial appointments.
Emboldened by the gain of four seats in the Nov. 2 national elections that brings the Republican majority in the body to 55, the Tennessee conservative told the Federalist Society, a conservative lawyers group, Thursday that the filibuster of Bush's nominees for the federal bench by Democrats that began in his first term would be stopped.
"One way or another, the filibuster of judicial nominees must end," said Frist.
Up to three vacancies are expected on the Supreme Court in Bush's second terms, opening up the possibility of stacking the court with conservative justices that would tip the court to the hard right for decades.
The prospect of this worries Democrats who are expected to try and filibuster his most conservative appointees to the federal bench.
Republicans do not have the votes needed to lower the 60-vote requirement to overcome the procedural move.
But the GOP may seek to declare filibusters of judicial nominees are unconstitutional under Senate rules, which would only require the support of a majority of the Senate to implement.
