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FROM KING FEATURES SYNDICATE, 888 SEVENTH AVE., NEW YORK, NY 10019 CUSTOMER SERVICE: (800) 708-7311 EXT. 236 DAN RATHER REPORTING FOR RELEASE ON OR AFTER WEDNESDAY, SEPT. 21, 2005 REID ON THE RECORD BY DAN RATHER When the full Senate votes next week on Judge John Roberts’ nomination to the Supreme Court, as many as 20 Democrats can probably be expected to join Republicans in confirming him as the nation’s 17th chief justice. One might further expect that Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, an abortion opponent from the red state of Nevada, would be among those Democrats. In a surprise announcement this week, however, Sen. Reid said that he would vote against Roberts’ confirmation. Reid has portrayed his intended vote as an individual act of conscience rather than as a signal that fellow Democrats should follow his lead. But his decision might nonetheless tell us something about the political battles to come. The looming vote on Roberts puts Senate Democrats in a tricky position. They go into it knowing that his confirmation is a gut cinch and that any vote against confirmation will be a largely symbolic gesture. They further know that President Bush will soon be sending another high-court nominee their way, and that the next nominee will be replacing the swing-voting Justice Sandra Day O’Connor rather than the reliably conservative former Chief Justice William Rehnquist. Of “no”-voting Democrats, the White House is likely to say: “If they won’t vote for Roberts” — who is, by acclamation, well-qualified for the Court in resume and intellect — “they won’t vote for any Bush appointee.” And Democrats don’t want to be seen as crying wolf on Roberts, not so long as they fear that Bush’s next nominee may be, from their point of view, a greater threat to Roe v. Wade and other past rulings they hold dear. Do Democrats make a stand on Roberts, even if it won’t change anything? Or do they keep their powder dry for the next nomination fight? Sen. Reid seems to have found a way to do both, by brandishing the bipartisan “Gang of 14” compromise on judicial-nomination filibusters. In announcing his decision to vote “no” on confirmation, Reid also stated that “the arguments against [Roberts] do not warrant extraordinary procedural tactics to block the nomination” — a reference to the “extraordinary circumstances” that, by the terms of the compromise, would justify a Democratic filibuster. Reid has found a way to distinguish between degrees of “no” votes, and the message is clear: If the next nominee is, on face, unacceptable to Democrats, the minority party still has the filibuster in its arsenal. More subtle, however, is what this might reveal about the Democrats’ state of mind as the 2006 and 2008 elections approach. Ever since their party lost control of the Senate, Democrats’ votes have been more about registering opinions than about affecting outcomes. While the president’s popularity was high, so was the pressure for Democrats to go along with his agenda, in the knowledge that they could do little to change it. This has given the White House tremendous political cover, with the vote to authorize the use of force in Iraq as the classic example. As John Kerry discovered in his presidential campaign, it’s hard to run against a policy you have, in essence, endorsed. Now, with a number of core Democratic interest groups opposing confirmation of Roberts, the party faces an accountability moment with its rank-and-file voters. Will Democrats hedge their bets and vote with the Republicans on a sure thing? Or will they dare to go on record against a popular nominee, and in so doing draw a distinction between themselves and their opposition? At the low ebb of President Bush’s popularity, the Senate’s Democratic leader has made a choice for himself and, perhaps, his party. The implications of that choice could make for a very interesting, perhaps defining, political season to come.