7 Republican and 7 Democratic U.S. Senators have hammered out a deal that avoids the so-called nuclear option and continues filibustering for 2 of President Bush’s judicial nominees in return for allowing 3 of them to be voted upon. While it’s admirable that some senators have attempted to find a compromise and break a deadlock over ideology, Democrats may have blinked too soon.

There was no guarantee that presidential hopeful (and thus religious right panderer) Bill Frist had enough support to change Senate rules. Arizona’s John McCain, Rhode Island’s Lincoln Chafee, and Alaska’s Lisa Murkowski all but pledged to vote against banning judicial filibusters. Several other moderate Republicans could likely be counted on to also vote against such a move.

Even under the agreement there’s no guarantee that rewriting Senate rules is off the table. Some Republicans have already threatened to bring the issue back if Democrats use the filibuster for anything other than the “extraordinary circumstances” vaguely mentioned in the deal. The clause is a clear victory for the GOP, who can use any interpretation of how extreme the case is for filibustering to take up the nuclear option again.

Finally, some would argue that 2 of the 3 judges being allowed a confirmation vote are the worst of the whole bunch! Any deal should have allowed the less controversial of the nominees to go through in exchange for a few of them (a mere fraction of the already small number of blocked nominees) to be denied cloture.

Let’s not forget why these judges are controversial. Janice Rogers Brown gets the bulk of the attention for her comments on the New Deal, but there are others worthy of attention. Richard Pryor has called trial lawyers “leftist bounty hunters”, supported dismantling the Violence Against Women Act and Clean Water Act, and supported cruel treatment of Alabama prisoners. Priscilla Owen has regularly ruled against workers and consumers and refused to recuse herself when judging cases involving corporations who gave her campaign contributions. William Myers has compared federal environmental protection to Britain’s colonial tyranny and was a lobbyist for the mining and grazing industry. The American Bar Association weakly gave him a “Qualified” rating for the federal judiciary (not a “Well Qualified” rating, and with one third of the committee rating him “Not Qualified”). He’s never even been a judge! Monday’s deal effectively eliminates Myers from consideration, but as I note before, the nuclear option can’t be counted out. More importantly, though, it speaks to the quality of judge being nominated by Bush.

This was bad deal-making prompted by fear. Again, I’m all for compromise, but one needs to make sure that deals are fair and reasonable. Part of this problem is that the populace is too apathetic about this issue to talk to their senators about it. Plus, many misconceptions abound. Wake up everyone. This will affect you one day.