What's the opinions on this deal between Tom Daschle and Pres. Bush? Is it a good deal, or not? And if so.....who do you think got the best deal?

GOP-Dem deal on judges
Up-or-down votes for ending recess appointments
By Geoff Earle

Senior White House officials and Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) reached a comprehensive deal yesterday that will free 25 of the president’s stalled judicial nominees.

The deal was an unusual display of accommodation in a year when battles over nominees have been among the chamber’s most bitter partisan disputes.

As part of the deal, President Bush has agreed not to use his authority to make recess appointments of any more judges through the end of his term. Bush outraged Democrats when he employed the tactic earlier this Congress to install William Pryor on the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals and Charles W. Pickering on the 5th Circuit.

“This is basically a temporary cease-fire in the ongoing war,” said Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas).

But left out of the deal is a group of seven controversial appeals court nominees.

Democrats will retain their rights to continue to delay these nominations through use of the filibuster. That disappointed some members of the GOP Conference and the Republican leadership, who had hoped to try to continue to play hardball to force their confirmations through the Senate.

“It’s not a slam-dunk from a lot of our guys’ perspective,” said one Senate GOP aide, referring to the deal. At a GOP Conference meeting yesterday, some senators protested that “we’re giving away too much,” the aide said.

Also as part of the arrangement, Republicans have agreed not to file any more cloture motions on the seven stalled nominees through the end of the summer — essentially ensuring that none of them moves. This prompted criticism from one conservative Republican, who argued that Republicans might have given up too much political ammunition.

“It might reduce our ability to highlight that issue,” said Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.).
Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) called the deal a “fair and balanced approach,” and it got mostly favorable reviews from Republicans and Democrats soon after the leaders announced it.

“Our leadership had to figure out a way to break that logjam” of nominations, said Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.).

Republicans say the president didn’t give up much, since Bush was unlikely to issue any further recess appointments before the election anyway. Each time the Senate adjourns for a recess, Democrats have demanded concrete assurances that Bush hold off on the tactic.

But if Bush were to lose the election, he would not be able to make any last-minute judicial recess appointments either, as President Clinton did on his way out of office.

Frist told The Hill that the deal on recess appointments would last “through the inauguration,” and he said on the floor that there would be no circuit-court or district-court recess appointments “during the remainder of the president’s term.”

He did not discuss other executive recess appointments.

Republicans also received an assurance from Daschle that each of the 25 judges would get an up-or-down vote in the Senate by June 25. Frist told reporters that he would have preferred not having to schedule a time-consuming vote on each judge individually, but he settled for the offer.

Left out of the deal, too, are dozens of nominees to executive boards and commissions. Daschle has been holding those up to protest Bush’s failure to appoint Democrats to several federal panels that traditionally have bipartisan membership.

“Frist had to sell this” to his fellow Republicans, said the Senate GOP aide, referring to the deal.

Although Bush gets the opportunity to put more conservative judges on the bench, Democrats may have obtained a strategic political win. Throughout the year, Republicans have used the judicial nominations to try to tag Democrats as obstructionist, staging all night “talkathons” on the issue and scheduling multiple cloture votes on stalled nominees. Daschle, in particular, has faced those charges in his tough election campaign.

But the pressure failed to force Democratic compliance and did not appear to resonate widely beyond the GOP’s natural political base. Aides say that the president’s staff made the initial contact when it reached out to Daschle aides in recent weeks.

At the same time, the judicial standoff prompted threats of legal action challenging the filibuster and even a constitutional amendment to outlaw it. It also led to a Senate investigation of GOP Judiciary Committee staffers who read Democratic computer files. Those files in turn revealed Democratic staff debates about whether to stall at least one nominee until a court delivered a key opinion on affirmative action.

The talks on the recent deal involved several key players, but much of the bargaining took place between Mark Childress, a top Daschle aide, and David Hobbs, Bush’s chief congressional liaison. As the talks progressed, White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card and White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales became involved.

GOP aides say that the White House had to handle the talks because the president’s recess appointment power was on the table. Normally, such talks would take place mainly between Senate Democratic and Republican leaders. Sources say Judiciary Chairman Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) and Minority Whip Sen.
Harry Reid (D-Nev.) were involved at various times.

Yesterday, Card, Daschle and Frist met in Frist’s Capitol office to seal the deal.

Daschle and Frist announced it on the Senate floor in a “colloquy.”