Are a Nominee's Views Fair Game?

Yet several key Democratic senators -- including some who helped craft the recent bipartisan deal -- said yesterday that a nominee's positions on issues would be part of the consideration. Under current Senate rules, it takes 60 senators to cut off a filibuster, but the Republicans hold 55 seats and have been frustrated at Democratic blocking tactics on nominees to federal circuit courts.

Under the May deal, crafted by seven senators from each party, Democrats agreed not to filibuster judicial nominees except in "extraordinary circumstances," while Republicans agreed not to support the "nuclear option" the GOP leadership proposed to ban judicial filibusters. The Senate confirmed several Bush nominees to the bench who had been criticized by Democrats as too conservative. Since then Republicans have interpreted it to mean no other nominee could be filibustered for sharing the same ideology.

Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.), one of the 14 who fashioned the agreement, said through a spokesman: "A nominee's political ideology is only relevant if it has been shown to cloud their interpretation of the law. . . . A pattern of irresponsible judgment, where decisions are based on ideology rather than the law, could potentially be 'extraordinary.' "

Sen. Ken Salazar (Colo.) rejected Republican assertions that he and other Democratic signers must accept a nominee as conservative as Janice Rogers Brown, now confirmed to a seat on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, because the agreement allowed her confirmation. "It didn't set a standard" for Supreme Court confirmations, Salazar said. "We would leave it up to each person to define what extraordinary circumstance means."

Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.), however, said judicial activism concerns him more than ideology. "Are they going to be an activist?" Nelson asked rhetorically in discussing what might cause him to filibuster a Supreme Court nominee. "Their political philosophy may not bother me at all if they're not going to be an activist."

The president's team considers Nelson a key Democrat, and White House Chief of Staff Andrew H. Card Jr. called the senator from Air Force One yesterday.

Rove made clear that Bush will consult with senators in both parties, but that he has no interest in any kind of grand bargain between the White House and Congress in which legislators would give support in exchange for advance input on the president's choice. Some Democratic groups have suggested that Bush seek an early consensus. Rove, however, cited his own weekend reading of the Federalist Papers to argue that the framers of the Constitution envisioned no such role for Congress, leaving the president alone to make nominations.

The discordant definitions of the filibuster deal could lead to the Senate showdown averted in May. If GOP signers to the deal decide that Democrats have broken its terms, they might throw their support to the "nuclear option" and vote to eliminate filibusters. Republicans point out that no Supreme Court nominee has ever been filibustered except Abe Fortas in 1968, when it was unclear that Fortas, an associate justice, had majority support for confirmation as chief justice.

"Throughout the history of the republic, Supreme Court nominations receive an up-or-down vote," Rove said. "We expect the Senate will" hold such a vote, he added.

The White House moved to put together a team to manage the nomination, tapping Gillespie to run the effort in a mostly nonpublic role, according to a Republican source, confirming a New York Times report. As party chairman, Gillespie was a Bush loyalist and key part of the inner circle that ran last year's reelection campaign.

Joining him at the White House, according to the source, will be another campaign veteran, Steve Schmidt, who was a rapid-response specialist last year and now serves as counselor to Vice President Cheney.

Rove would not confirm the personnel moves yesterday but described a selection process longer than originally anticipated. Instead of announcing a nominee next week, Bush could take weeks because of a variety of factors such as the need to focus this week on the Group of Eight summit in Scotland.

"That is going to conspire to make this a several week" process, Rove said, adding: "There's been no date set by which he's going to make a decision or make an announcement."

In an interview published yesterday in USA Today, Bush said it would take "over the course of the next few weeks" and called on interest groups to "tone down the heated rhetoric." He also rejected conservative attacks on Gonzales. "Al Gonzales is a great friend of mine," Bush said. "I'm the kind of person, when a friend gets attacked, I don't like it."

Staff writer Dan Balz contributed to this report.