WASHINGTON — During the floor debate prior to the filibustering agreement Monday, Utah's Republican Sen. Bob Bennett placed himself "on the record very firmly that I am on the same side as those who say preserve the filibuster."

"I think the filibuster is a very worthwhile thing to hang on to, to preserve the rights of the minority," Bennett told fellow senators. The compromise came on the eve of a vote in the Senate to do away with filibustering on judicial appointments — the so-called "nuclear option."

Despite his support of keeping the option to filibuster, Bennett said the time may have come to change the Senate rules — something that has been done many times since filibusters were first allowed in 1917 — to end debate on judicial nominees with a simple majority.

And he used quotes from Democratic senators in decades past to make his case that Democrats are creating new precedence by not allowing any up or down votes on controversial nominees and that they are ignoring their own history.

Bennett quoted Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., who in the 1970s argued for the time-honored ability of the majority to change the rules, and how then-Sen. Walter Mondale, D-Minn., said the majority "clearly, unequivocally and unmistakably" had the right to change the rules.

And Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., the longest-serving member of Congress at 53 years, openly bragged in 1977 that he used majority rule to "create new precedents that break these filibusters."

In other words, the majority party has always changed the rules to suit its needs, Bennett said, and that is the only tradition at stake in the debate.

"What we're talking about doing now is using the time-honored Senate procedure — to change the (filibuster) rule with a majority vote," Bennett said from the Senate floor.

---

E-mail: spang@desnews.com