Filibusters and the "Constitutional Option".

Since 2001, Senate Democrats have used the filibuster or the threat of filibuster to prevent up-or-down votes on many of President Bush's nominees to powerful federal courts of appeals. Leaders of liberal activist groups have already announced that they also plan to demand filibusters against many of the top candidates for future nomination by President Bush to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Under current Senate rules, it requires the votes of 60 out of 100 senators to "invoke cloture" and thereby end a filibuster on a nomination. If fewer than 60 senators support cloture, it is impossible to ever reach an up-or-down vote on whether the nominee should be confirmed.

In contrast, under the proposed reform advanced by Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tn.), referred to as the "constitutional option" or "nuclear option," after a substantial amount of debate on any given nomination, further debate would be ruled out of order. The Senate would then immediately proceed to an up-or-down vote, and the nominee would be confirmed if he or she received the support of a simple majority of senators.

The "constitutional option" itself can be adopted with a simple majority. It would happen like this: If at some future date there has been a substantial amount of debate on a nominee to a federal court, and Senate Democrats refuse to support cloture, Frist would make the point of order that ...