Filibuster Si, Estrada No!
GARRETT, MAJOR
Filibuster Si, Estrada No! The great Republican divide over how to fight for Bush's judicial nominee. BY MAJOR GARRETT IT'S NOT CLEAR whether the constitutional definition of "advice and consent"...
...Kyl see the Estrada fight as purely ideological and strongly oppose cutting any deal on access to his working papers...
...Democratic senators report no political backlash at home and see it as their duty to defend Daschle...
...While protecting the privacy of internal memos at the Justice Department, the White House may be sacrificing the 50-vote majority as the historic benchmark of constitutional fitness for the federal bench...
...And was there any flexibility in the White House's objection to releasing the working memos Estrada wrote while deputy solicitor general in the Clinton Justice Department...
...We want to win this, but you don't win it by breaking a principle that has served this nation well for 200 years...
...This is very close to the point where you can't pull it back...
...Senate Republicans believe the White House has severely limited their room to negotiate...
...He knows he's taken, and will take, enough flak on fiscal policy...
...Conservatives like Sen...
...This adamantine posture, in the eyes of some in Senate GOP leadership circles, handcuffed Frist...
...While GOP senators are loath to admit it, the Estrada debate has drifted on this long because the White House and the GOP leadership could not fashion a cohesive strategy...
...This is not complicated...
...This standard will have to be applied to both parties and by both Major Garrett is national correspondent for the Fox News Channel...
...I understand the principle, and I support it, but on this one it feels belligerent," said a longtime Republican lobbyist and ally of the Bush White House...
...But Sen...
...And some Senate Republicans wonder why it's more important to protect executive privilege than a president's power to have judicial nominees confirmed by simple majority vote...
...Estrada is not the first fight new majority leader Bill Frist would have chosen—at least not under the restrictions imposed by the White House...
...parties...
...If we go very much further there will be obvious consequences," said Sen...
...Though the White House has never characterized the Estrada matter as one of executive privilege (it is more akin to lawyer-client privilege), it falls into the broad category of executive branch muscularity...
...Senior Senate GOP staff told White House and Justice Department officials that cutting a deal on limited Democratic access to Estrada's working papers could lead to his confirmation...
...But no one in the GOP Senate leadership or the Bush White House can explain how or when that will happen...
...The White House refused...
...Harry Reid, the Senate's No...
...The Republic isn't there yet...
...It's a phony issue, a manufactured issue," said Kyl...
...2 Democrat, has said he will support Estrada if the papers are turned over and nothing objectionable emerges...
...BY MAJOR GARRETT IT'S NOT CLEAR whether the constitutional definition of "advice and consent" will become a casualty of Miguel Estrada's fight for a seat on the D.C...
...This is a fight he's prepared to stick with...
...When a reporter last week asked Sen...
...Some Senate Republicans believe a new 60-vote standard for judicial appointments could severely hamper this president and all future presidents...
...This is an ideological fight, and this is a fight for Daschle to be taken seriously," said a senior aide to a Democratic senator who has teamed up with the White House on economic policy...
...In a 55-44 vote, Democrats last week defeated a Republican attempt to break their unprecedented partisan filibuster of Estrada's nomination, opening the way for the simple-majority standard for Senate confirmation of judicial nominees to be replaced with a super-majority requirement...
...Enough Democrats to break the filibuster would surely follow Reid, senior Democratic sources say...
...But numerous Republican senators say the Estrada fight, for all its constitutional implications, has yet to resonate with the public...
...But it's close...
...Jon Kyl, an Arizona Republican...
...If that price seems too high, the White House may want to reexam-ine the price of the alternative, an increasingly bitter filibuster fight...
...And if we deal on the papers, it will be something else...
...But it came down to the fact that no one on the White House or Justice team wanted to walk into the Oval Office and say to the president, 'You might have to give up these memos.'" The administration's position on the memos reflects its deeply held ethic of aggressively defending executive branch prerogatives...
...Circuit Court of Appeals, but the possibility is serious and sobering...
...There's some frustration," said a top GOP leadership aide...
...The White House is not going to confirm him without paying a price...
...The strain on the Constitution and Senate precedent is now obvious...
...Period...
...And my boss is with Daschle...
...Absent a deal on the working memos, all Estrada can bank on is White House and Republican promises to fight until they prevail...
...The White House wants the fight to drag out and political pressure to build on centrist Democrats...
...Early on, several veteran GOP Senate staffers warned the White House and Justice Department to prepare for a brawl...
...Rick Santorum, the GOP conference chairman, if opposition to divulging Estrada's Justice Department memos was permanent, he snapped, "Ask the White House...
...The White House likes the Hispanic dimension of the Estrada fight and is counting on the weight of editorial and public opinion to turn the tide...
...Less obvious is the toll the Estrada fight has taken on the relationship between the new Senate GOP leadership team and the Bush White House...
...There would be no access to Estrada's working papers...
...Their guy's not going to get confirmed without them," said a top Democratic lawyer who backs Estrada...
...From the very beginning we told them that was the only way out and a face-saver for everyone...
...And while most Republicans generally support this posture, some Bush allies on and off Capitol Hill have come to question the administration's fastidiousness in the Estrada fight...
...They then gingerly asked two questions: Would Estrada answer more questions from Democrats...
Vol. 8 • March 2003 • No. 26
