ConfirmThem

By AndrewHyman Posted in Circuit Courts — Comments () / Email this page » / Leave a comment »

I'm not quite sure where Rush Limbaugh gets all this stuff, but it sure is interesting:

Republicans are thinking about throwing up William James Haynes to test just where the seven Republicans on the gang of 14 stand on the filibuster deal that they cut three weeks ago. "Conservative Republican senators plan on pressing the nomination of Defense Department General Counsel William James Haynes." Now, Haynes is one of the nominees, and if you believe the Democrats that cut the deal, Haynes is one of the nominees not officially part of that Gang of 14 agreement. "However, several Republicans in the negotiating room including Lindsey Graham claimed that Haynes was one of the nominees, that all 14 agreed would be released for a vote by the full Senate. A GOP staffer in the leadership said, 'We want to hold Graham and Susan Collins and the rest of them to their word. One of the reasons we went along with this deal to the degree that we did was because they promised nominees like Haynes would get an up-and-down vote. They gave us their word. We assume their word to fellow Republicans is as good as their word to Democrats,'" but we'll see. This is a senior Republican staffer in the leadership of the Senate saying this. So, you know, there's a lot of potential fireworks to come down the pike this week.

As I mentioned previously, if the Dems say that any of the nominees aren't covered by the agreement, then those nominees could be withdrawn and nominated for different judgeships, so they would definitely fall within the terms of the agreement (e.g. nominate Myers for the DC Circuit). Alternatively, if the Dems say that some nominees aren't covered by the agreement, then 51 Senators would be free to cut off filibusters just for those particular nominees (call this a mini-nuclear option). Another possibility: let the nominations of Saad, Myers, and the rest expire at the end of this one-year session of Congress, at which time they would have to be nominated again, thereby coming within the terms of the agreement (see page 946 of Riddick which says that the “president submits nominees anew each session‿).

UPDATE: Thanks to two of the commenters for pointing out that Rush got much of this stuff from an article in the American Spectator.