United States: Key legislators say it is still possible a deal can be reached to avert "the nuclear option" - a Republican threat in the US senate to end the ability of Democrats to block President Bush's conservative judicial nominees.
But these legislators, among a dozen largely moderate senators in search of a bipartisan compromise, acknowledged yesterday that time was running out.
Senator John McCain, an Arizona Republican, said they would be meeting again this evening "and that will be our last opportunity". Others said talks could stretch to tomorrow, just before potentially climactic senate votes following a scheduled all-night session.
"We're all grown men and women and we're behaving like we're in the third grade," Senator Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican, told CNN. "Yes, it's very doable if people of good faith will come together." Senator Ben Nelson, a Nebraska Democrat, said: "I don't know if we're going to be able to get it done or not, but I certainly hope so."
Unless a deal is reached, the Republican-led Senate has set the stage to vote, likely at midday tomorrow, on the so-called nuclear option effort to ban procedural roadblocks known as filibusters against candidates for US appeals courts and the Supreme Court.
If Republicans prevail - and it remains uncertain if they have the votes - Democrats have vowed to retaliate by raising parliamentary obstacles to other Bush priorities, which could tie the chamber in knots.
Mr McCain said: "We have more than 12 senators, people of good will who trust one another who want to avoid this 'nuclear explosion' which could harm the institution in the long run and in the short run keep us from doing the business the people sent us here to do."
While a simple majority is needed to confirm a judicial nominee, 60 votes are needed in the 100- member senate to end a filibuster, which can block action by allowing unlimited debate.
The framework of a possible deal among the dozen senators, which has been in flux for more than a week, has been to provide enough votes to clear for confirmation some of Mr Bush's disputed judicial candidates, while rejecting others.
A stumbling block in this potential compromise has been getting Republicans to agree to preserve the option of judicial filibusters through 2006 in exchange for Democrats promising not to invoke such tactics except in "extreme circumstances." Reaching acceptable language in the potential deal has been a challenge.
Senate majority leader Bill Frist, a Tennessee Republican, plans to move to invoke the nuclear option tomorrow if Democrats, as expected, refuse to clear for a confirmation vote Mr Bush's nomination of Texas Supreme Court judge Priscilla Owen to the 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals.
Judge Owen was among 10 judicial nominees blocked by Democrats in the last congress. Mr Bush renominated seven of them after winning re-election.
Republicans have accused Democrats of unprecedented obstructionism since filibusters were rarely used on judicial nominees until Mr Bush took office in 2001. - (Reuters)