Capital Briefs

* OWEN LEADING OFF? Speculation mounted last week that Texas Supreme Court Justice Priscilla Owen would be the first appellate-court nominee brought to the Senate floor this year for a confirmation vote. That would almost certainly spark a Democratic filibuster that in turn would cause Senate Republicans to change Senate rules and prohibit the filibuster of judicial nominees.

Democrats successfully blocked Owen on four cloture votes in 2003. Even though she enjoys the support of a strong majority in the current Senate, she still lacks the 60 votes needed for clôture. Republicans have only two more weeks to act on the filibuster question before the Memorial Day recess, which begins May 30; and waiting any longer than that could make the "nuclear option" more difficult given the possibility that Chief Justice William Rehnquist could retire when the Supreme Court finishes its session in June.

* GOP PULLS EVEN: After nearly six months of running behind Democrats in the public-relations fight over President Bush's judicial nominees, Republicans are beginning to exude confidence, reports the Washington Times. "We were a little slower on the draw," a GOP source told the Times. "But we're there now-at parity with them in terms of mobilization and intensity and breadth and depth of coalition effort."

Democrats anticipated a Senate showdown almost immediately after the election, prompting some conservatives-including Sen. Orrin Hatch (R.-Utah) in the pages of HUMAN EVENTS (December 27 issue)-to demand action on the "nuclear option" at the start of the 109th Congress. At the time, Majority Leader Bill Frist (R.-Tenn.) promised action in February, only to repeatedly put off the showdown due to poor message management and the reluctance of some Republican senators to support the move. Weekly conference calls are now taking place among conservative activists, and Frisfs office has kept pace with Democrats by sending out twice-daily e-mail messages on the judicial fight. Senate Majority Whip Mitch McConnell (R.-Ky.), meanwhile, has indicated he is confident the GOP has the votes to forbid judicial filibusters.

* HIGHWAY ROBBERY: The Senate last week voted to spend $295 billion on a highway bill, even though President Bush vowed to veto the bill if it exceeded the $284 billion the House approved earlier this year (see Legislative Lowdown on page 15). When Senate Budget Chairman Judd Gregg (R.-N.H.) offered a budget point of order seeking to cut the Senate bill back to $284 billion, the point of order was rejected 76-22, with 30 Republicans voting the wrong way.

Twenty-one Republicans did the right thing and voted to cut the excessive spending. They were: Wayne Allard (CoIo.), Sam Brownback (Kan.), Saxby Chambliss (Ga.), Tom Coburn (OkIa.), John Cornyn (Texas), Larry Craig (Id.), Jim DeMint (S.C.), John Ensign (Nev.), Mike Enzi (Wyo.), Bill Frist (Tenn.), Lindsey Graham (S.C.), Judd Gregg (N.H.), Chuck Hagel (Neb.), Kay Bailey Hutchison (Texas), Johnny lsakson (Ga.), Jon KyI (Ariz.), John McCain (Ariz.), Mitch McConnell (Ky.), Jeff Sessions (Ala.), John Sununu (N.H.), Craig Thomas (Wyo.). Russ Feingold of Wisconsin was the only Democrat to vote to cut the spending.

* DID SHE OR DIDN'T SHE? Sen. Hillary Clinton's former finance director David Rosen, charged with three counts of causing false statements to be filed to the Federal Election Commission about a Hollywood fund-raiser, went on trial last week. He reported the event cost about $400,000, but prosecutors say it was almost three times as expensive. Rosen has pleaded not guilty.

In his opening statement, the prosecutor, Peter R. Zeigenberg, said: "You will hear no evidence that Hillary Clinton was involved in any way, shape or form." The judge said Clinton would not be called as a witness (although the prosecutor asked the judge that former President Bill Clinton not be ruled out as a possible witness). Meanwhile, Judicial Watch has filed papers with the Senate Ethics Committee, asking it to investigate Hillary, arguing she must have known the fund-raiser cost more than was reported.

* LOW BLOW: Minority Leader Harry Reid (D.-Nev.) caught conservatives by surprise when he took to the Senate floor May 12 to attack appellate court nominee Henry Saad, whose nomination to the 6th Circuit was first blocked by the Democrats in 2003. Saad is one of four nominees being held up by Michigan's two Democrat senators-Carl Levin and Debbie Stabenow-who are still angry that Levin's cousin-in-law, a Clinton-era judicial nominee, never got a vote in the Senate. Commenting on the situation, Reid indicated that the Democrats would probably filibuster Saad, and, according to the Associated Press, said: "All you need to do is have a member go upstairs and look at his confidential report from the FBI and I think you would all agree that there's a problem there." The conservative Committee for Justice promptly responded, 'This is character assassination of the lowest order and completely improper."

* 'BLISSFULLY UNAWARE'? The Washington Posts Dana Milbank once again confirmed the paper's liberal tilt in a story headlined, "On a Bicycle in Beltsville, Blissfully Unaware," which ran May 12, a day after Washington received a scare when a small aircraft entered the no-fly zone surrounding the city. Bush, it turns out, had been riding his bicycle in a nearby Maryland suburb at the time the White House issued a red alert. "He was out at the Patuxent Wildlife Research Center in Beltsville, riding his bicycle-at noon on a Wednesday-blissfully unaware," reported Milbank. "It was not the first time a crisis has focused uninvited attention on the Bush fitness routine." White House Press secretary Scott McClellan noted that Bush had just returned from a four-day trip to Europe. Milbank's point, apparently, was that the President that morning should have anticipated that the misguided pilot of a small private plane that took off out of a small Pennsylvania airport was going to accidentally stray into Washington airspace.