(snip)"Now that Texas judge Priscilla Owen and California judge Janice Rogers Brown have been approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee, Frist has two nominees to push forward in a battle that conservatives hope their allies will rally around.
"We have now the vehicle. We have two qualified women. They have met every test," said Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas.
An internal Republican poll showed that Frist's plan to ban judicial filibusters might not be as popular as they had hoped.
Frist, strongly backed by conservatives in and out of the Senate, has threatened to employ a parliamentary tactic - requiring only a majority vote - to change Senate practices on judicial filibusters. Republicans hold 55 seats in the 100-member Senate, and Cheney would be available to break a tie if necessary. (snip)
Conservatives during the last Congress accused Democrats of acting out of racial, religious and gender prejudice in blocking Brown, Owen and Pryor. Brown is black, and Pryor is a Catholic.(snip)"
Political conjecture on my part. Republicans plan to defuse the coming 'tyranny of the majority' bad publicity stemming from an upcoming Senate rules change to limit filibusters to legislation only, by driving a wedge between democrats and their almost total support by American blacks. If Janice Rogers Brown is the judicial nominee put forward, it will put democrats in the position of advocating continued use of the judicial appointments blocking filibuster against a well qualified black female judicial nominee from the #1 blue state. If democrats persist in blocking Janice Rogers Brown, it opens them up to tons of bad publicity as well as major political criticism in regard to their REAL view of blacks as a 2006 election issue. If democrats cave on Janice Rogers Brown, it opens the door for GWB to appoint and have confirmed any new judges he chooses to nominate (which, arguably, is exactly what the US constitution provides for anyhow). Either way this appears to be a no-win situation for senate democrats.
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