Rick Santorum, by contrast, appears to have his finger on the trigger.

Fellow Republicans from the same state, Pennsylvanians Specter and Santorum diverge on an issue that's ostensibly about judges but actually taps today's most explosive issues — prolonging life, the right to abortion, school prayer.

The issue is a rule change that's being called the ''nuclear option,'' and if Republicans launch it to prohibit Democrats from blocking President Bush's judicial nominees with filibusters, the Democrats threaten to retaliate by shutting down the Senate.

Specter is among a handful of lawmakers who won't say how they would vote on the change. Last year, when he was fighting conservative activists to become Judiciary Committee chairman, he issued a statement lending support.

But with the showdown now looming, Specter is urging colleagues to step back from the brink, put national interest ahead of partisanship and consider the qualifications of each White House nominee.

Santorum says judicial filibusters are an abuse of Senate rules and a violation of the U.S. Constitution, which he asserts requires nominees to get an up-or-down confirmation vote.

''[Democrats] want to change the precedents of 200 years of history,'' Santorum said. ''This never happened before. Filibusters should only apply to legislation.''

Tough talk fits Santorum's intra-party Senate job — that of Republican message-maker. Specter, as leader of the Senate panel charged with vetting judicial nominees, shoulders a different burden.

Also, Santorum faces re-election next year; Specter does not.

Certain groups on the political right, who've ratcheted up their criticism of the judiciary on the heels of the Terri Schiavo controversy, are pressing Senate Republicans to launch the rule change.

''We must act now,'' said a recent alert by the Family Research Council, a Christian conservative advocacy group, to its members. This weekend, the council's political arm is hosting ''Justice Sunday'' at a Kentucky church to rally opposition to filibusters. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist is scheduled to attend.

Democrats and their allies argue that the filibuster protects minority rights in the Senate — rights that protect both parties over time. They also argue that they've only filibustered 10 nominees while helping to confirm 204 of Bush's 215 choices for the bench.

Republicans see the math differently, noting that only 35 of Bush's 52 appellate court nominees have been confirmed, a lower success rate than any modern president. Some of the nominees are awaiting committee approval.

The stakes for both sides are extremely high, given the likelihood of a vacancy on the Supreme Court later this year. Without the filibuster, Democrats would be powerless to stop the majority Republicans from confirming all of Bush's nominees.

The next few weeks will be crucial.

Frist has signaled that he's closer to initiating the rule change, perhaps with two previously filibustered judicial nominees: Janice Rogers Brown and Priscilla Owen. Brown, on the California Supreme Court, is up for a seat on the D.C. Circuit and Owen, a member of the Texas Supreme Court, has been put forward for a seat on the 5th Circuit.

''Soon, all 100 senators will have to decide if these highly qualified candidates will get a fair up or down vote on the Senate floor,'' Frist said Thursday after Specter's Judiciary Committee approved Brown and Owen on party-line votes.

Although there have been ongoing discussions between Republican and Democratic leaders, a compromise on judicial nominees is nowhere in sight. If anything, the rhetoric has grown more heated.

Santorum has been among those fanning the flames. In the last Congress, he organized an all-night marathon on the Senate floor attacking Democratic filibusters.

In a column for the Washington Post on Sunday calling the filibusters ''extreme and an arrogation of power,'' Santorum wrote, ''Democrats have made it all too clear that they are willing to let the Constitution's separation of powers fall by the wayside if that's what it takes to push through their agenda.''

Although Santorum's stand helps endear him to social conservatives, it could make it harder for him to court moderates next year. Democrats could also point out that Santorum has used senatorial ''blue slips'' to block several of President Bill Clinton's judicial nominees for Pennsylvania.

''Santorum is no stranger to using the rules to block judges,'' said Jon Delano, a political analyst from Carnegie Mellon University.

Santorum says blue slips, a tradition that enables senators to block nominees in their states, are fundamentally different from filibusters. He also seems to be counting on the public to blame Democrats for blocking Bush's judges and perhaps bogging down the Senate, keeping it from dealing with energy policy, immigration reform and other issues.

Specter is among a handful of Republican senators who are publicly undecided on the nuclear option. He said he's on the fence so he can negotiate with both sides.

Campaigning last year, Specter argued that his relationships with Democrats would enable him to win support for more of Bush's judges. Since taking the gavel in January, he's worked to bridge the partisan divide on the Judiciary Committee, opening a dialogue with Democrats and circulating a number of memos in support of Bush's most conservative nominees.

''I hope we can look at judges individually,'' Specter said. ''The American way is individualized justice as opposed to these lofty generalizations and principles which get us into a lot of trouble.''

But with Brown and Owen on deck, Specter may be running out of time to do things his way.

By Jeff Miller, The Morning Call, Apr 22, 2005

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