So crowed Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid in May 2005 when seven Republican senators and seven Democratic senators announced a deal—the so-called Gang of 14 Agreement—on the eve of a dramatic vote to abolish the filibuster for judicial nominations. Reid would prove to be wrong here, as he was on so much else: he himself would lead the successful Democratic effort to “nuke” the filibuster for lower-court nominations and executive-branch nominations in 2013.

My Confirmation Tales post today on the Gang of 14 Agreement takes me back twenty years to the very beginning of Bench Memos. Here’s an excerpt:

The one huge question was whether [majority leader Bill] Frist had the votes he needed.
The stakes were high. If Frist succeeded, the Senate, with its 55 Republicans, could promptly confirm the dozen or so appellate nominees who had been held in limbo. At least as importantly, Bush would have an easy path to getting any Supreme Court nominees confirmed in the 109th Congress (2005-2006). And any justices or appellate judges who had been hesitating to step down out of fear that their seats would remain vacant would no longer have that concern.
Conversely, the consequences for Bush and Senate Republicans would be severe if Frist lost the vote on filibuster abolition. Democrats would be emboldened to expand their filibuster campaign more broadly, and the filibuster threat would weigh heavily over a Supreme Court vacancy. Conservative activists would react with rage against Republican senators who sank the cause.

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