Gang of 14
From Biocrawler, the free encyclopedia.
The "Gang of 14" was a term coined to describe the bipartisan group of moderate Senators who successfully negotiated a compromise to avoid the deployment of the so-called nuclear option over the organized filibustering by Senate Democrats of judicial nominees in the US Senate.
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7 Republicans:
7 Democrats:
The compromise
Because of the split of the Senate - 55 Republicans, 44 Democrats and 1 Democrat-aligned independent - if six Senators from each party could reach an agreement, it was realized that these twelve could both forestall the nuclear option and force cloture on nominees. With a cloture vote scheduled on the nomination of Priscilla Owen - the opening move in firing the nuclear option - for Tuesday, May 24, 2005, and with Majority Leader Bill Frist and Minority Leader Harry Reid having evidently given up all pretence of finding a compromise (each have been accused of having desired the nuclear showdown for their own political ends), the minds of traditionalists and moderates in both parties were focussed on finding some alternative way out. In the end, seven Senators from each party got behind a compromise which stated, in essence, that Democrat filibusters would come to an end in "all but extraordinary circumstances", and the GOP would not use the nuclear option.
Results and possible results
The immediate and proximate result was the curtailing of Democratic filibusters and the short-term end to the "nuclear option" debate. Sen. Orrin Hatch has characterized this as "a truce, not a ceasefire", and the potential for resumption of hostilities is obvious: the compromise rules out Democratic Filibusters in "all but extraordinary circumstances", yet the day after the compromise was announced, Democratic Minority Leader Harry Reid provocatively announced in a speech on the Senate floor that in his view, the Democrats were already only using the filibuster in "extraordinary circumstances". In the Minority Leader's mind, the compromise simply ratifies "business as usual". Equally, a provocative attempt by Sen. Carl Levin to shut the door on the nuclear option by obtaining a ruling from the chair - at that moment, Sen. John Sununu - that the filibuster had been yielded as constitutional by the compromise, failed; the Republican leadership, thus, retains the nuclear option. Thus, moderates on both sides have claimed victory, and partisans on both sides have claimed defeat.
Senator Lindsey Graham has suggested that the shift of political center of gravity caused by the emergence of the Gang of 14 could be extended to finding a solution to an issue like the reform of Social Security; Democrats have pledged to block the reforms proposed by President Bush, and both Graham and Olympia Snowe have signalled their opposition to certain aspects of the President's reforms. Whether the remaining 5 Republicans would go along with such an extension is as yet unclear.
