A little over 12 hours ago, both sides in the Senate were steaming towards a confrontation. But just as the politicians rolled up their sleeves for a lengthy session of bare-knuckle politics, a small group of moderate Senators produced a compromise.
Republicans will now press ahead with votes on the appointment of controversial conservative judges. And under this deal Democrats have agreed not to use the delay tactic of the filibuster, except in what they consider extraordinary circumstances.
Some in Washington say all the two sides have really done is postpone the confrontation for another day, while many voters are looking at the whole affair and wondering why there is all the fuss in the first place. That may turn out to be the key factor in the compromise, that politicians talking of nuclear options found no one else was listening.
Guests:
Elaine Kamarck, lecturer in public policy at Harvard’s Kennedy School and former senior policy advisor to
Al Gore
David Nather, Senior Writer for CQ Weekly;Dan Schnur, Republican Political and Media Consultant