Myers’ nomination not dead, Sen. Craig says

BOISE – Sen. Larry Craig insisted Tuesday that a bipartisan Senate agreement to preserve filibuster rights for minority Democrats while breaking gridlock on several judicial nominees does not spell the end to the judicial nomination of Boise attorney William G. Myers.

Under an agreement signed Monday by 14 members of the Senate, Democrats will allow final confirmation votes for Priscilla Owen, Janice Rogers Brown and William Pryor – appeals court nominees they have long blocked.

The agreement was clear enough on the fate of Owen, Brown and Pryor, guaranteeing them a yes-or-no vote on confirmation. It made no such guarantee for two others, Myers and 6th U.S. Circuit Court nominee Henry Saad, although Republicans promised to press for their approval as well.

Senators disagreed Tuesday over the precise meaning and staying power of a compromise forged by centrist senators Monday night that averted a showdown over judicial nominees and the Senate’s own filibuster rules.

Filibustering is a method of using the Senate rules to stall floor business indefinitely; 60 votes are needed to cut off debate.

In the end, the compromise said senators would filibuster future nominees only under extraordinary circumstances.

Republican Craig said he still expects Myers’ nomination to reach the Senate floor sometime next week.

“The agreement was only struck on the three most controversial judges,” Craig said Tuesday. “The other judges are expected to be handled” in the usual way.

And, Craig said, if the Democrats care to filibuster next week, then he would expect Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist of Tennessee to take action to end the minority’s right to stall.

Frist issued a statement Tuesday saying that he would “continue to fight for other qualified nominees who have been waiting for votes and deserve the same courtesy and fairness,” as those included in the agreement.

Myers is a former Interior Department official who once worked for mining and cattle interests. His name was one of four submitted to the Bush administration by Craig in 2003 to replace Judge Tom Nelson on the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

The Interior Department’s top lawyer from 2001-2003, Myers is opposed for what Democrats and environmentalists say is his anti-environment agenda. But Republicans say Myers, now a private lawyer in Boise, would make a good judge on the 9th Circuit, considered by many in the GOP as the most liberal of the regional appeals courts.

The Senate Judiciary Committee voted 10-8 along party lines in March to send Myers’ nomination to the full Senate for approval.

Cecil Andrus, former Interior secretary and a former Democratic governor of Idaho, has written Congress in support of Myers, as has former Wyoming Gov. Mike Sullivan.

But special interest groups on both sides of the issue contend the Senate agreement effectively ends Myers’ nomination.

Overall, said Sean Rushton, executive director of the conservative Washington D.C.-based Committee for Justice, the Republicans won the battle because the great majority of Bush’s judicial nominees will have a vote. But a few won’t.

“The really negative part is that they seem to have thrown these individual nominees over the side in order to allow the Democrats to save face,” Rushton said.

Seth Rosenthal, legal director for the left-leaning Alliance for Justice, said Myers was just one of many judges who should have been blocked.

“Who knows why the Republicans decided to throw Myers overboard?” he said. “My guess is that he didn’t have the constituency backing him.”

But Craig maintained no nominee was sacrificed to reach the broader agreement.

“I have met with all seven Republicans who negotiated the agreement, and not one of them would agree with that,” he said.