Legislative Background
Recent Action on Judicial Nominees
The legacy of last year’s bitterly fought elections is a still narrowly divided House and Senate, and partisan wrangling that is, if anything, more acrimonious than it was in the previous Congress. On the opening day of the 109th Congress, Majority Leader Bill Frist (TN-R) announced that if Democrats attempted to block a floor vote on any judicial nominees, he would resort to the "nuclear option" — a parliamentary maneuver to change the number of votes needed to break a filibuster from 60 to a simple majority. Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (NV-D), in a letter to Senator Frist, countered…
