WASHINGTON, May 23 (UPI) -- The U.S. Senate may be roiling by a threat to end filibusters on judicial nominees, but the question is how much anyone outside Washington cares.
Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., said the Senate will have a roll call vote Tuesday on ending debate on the nomination of Priscilla Owen to the federal bench. The vote could end the filibuster as a method to stop judicial nominations. Democrats insist, if the vote goes against them, they will tie up other Senate business in retaliation.
Democrats claim a handful of President Bush's nominees to the federal judiciary are too conservative and should not be appointed to the bench. Republicans, with a solid majority in the Senate, counter that every nominee deserves an up-or-down vote.
A bipartisan group of Senators has been working on a compromise, which may involved some nominations being withdrawn in exchange for keeping the right to filibuster "extreme" judicial nominations.
The Christian Science Monitor, in a report Monday, said outside Washington and ideological partisans, much of the country is more concerned with high gas prices and the war in Iraq than the judges battle.
