Do some in GOP back filibuster?

WASHINGTON — The outcome of a looming Senate confrontation over judicial nominees rests with a small band of uneasy Republicans who are reluctant to follow their leaders and force up-or-down votes on President Bush's contested federal court candidates.

They number fewer than a dozen and comprise an odd coalition that's part moderate, part maverick and part traditionalist. They include Senate veterans and relative newcomers, all worried that a clash that's come to be called the "nuclear option" would cause lasting damage to the Senate.

They also share a tepid if not frigid relationship with religious conservatives, an influential Republican bloc that's itching for a showdown with Democrats over Bush's judicial nominees.

Among this band of renegade Senate Republicans are Northeasterners Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins of Maine, Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island and Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania. Nonconformists John McCain of Arizona and Chuck Hagel of Nebraska also are included, as is 27-year Senate veteran John Warner of Virginia, who reveres the chamber's traditions.

Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Gordon Smith of Oregon also are counted because they've voiced reservations about the showdown, though only McCain, Chafee and Snowe are considered sure votes against the Republican leadership.

With the confrontation expected any day this month, and perhaps as early as this week, these Republicans have the power to limit Bush's ability to reshape the federal judiciary. Most important, they could determine how aggressively Bush moves to change the balance of power in the Supreme Court should any seats there become vacant.

At stake is the ability of a Senate minority to halt confirmation of judicial nominees. During Bush's first term, Democrats blocked 10 of his 52 nominees for federal appellate courts, even though those nominees had the support of a majority of senators. Democrats did it with filibusters, a parliamentary maneuver of unlimited debate that requires 60 votes in the 100-member Senate to overcome.

With seven of the 10 blocked nominees now back before the Senate for confirmation, Majority Leader

Bill Frist, R-Tenn., has vowed to end filibusters against judicial candidates once and for all. He would move to declare such judicial filibusters unconstitutional, a finding that could be upheld by a simple majority of senators.