Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist and his Republican allies have been champing at the bit in anticipation for their highly unprecedented move to overturn part of the Senate's filibuster rule. Just as their vote nears, it appears that the window of opportunity is closing. As Geoff Earle reports in The Hill, a number of the GOP's key allies have withdrawn their support for the move and are in fact concerned about the potential consequences of the move.

Worried that their agenda will come to a screeching halt, business leaders are urging Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) not to exercise a bold parliamentary tactic known as the “nuclear option” on judicial nominees.

Industry lobbyists and association heads so far have avoided taking a public role as the debate over stalled judicial nominations escalates. Instead, they are relying on one-on-one conversations with Senate leaders, comments in meetings on other subjects, and staff contacts. But, according to multiple sources on K Street, the employer community has concluded that, whatever its merits, the nuclear option is not worth the price of imperiling the GOP’s legislative agenda.

“If and when they play this nuclear-option card,” said one association head, “it’ll certainly make a big impact on how the legislative agenda is dealt with. … It’s less important to the business community than it is to others.” The association chief added that industry officials “have given advice to the leadership,” adding that business leaders who have pending “agenda items” undertook the initiative on their own.
One person who has spoken to Senate Republican leaders about the nuclear option and its repercussions on the legislative agenda is former Michigan Gov. John Engler (R-Mich.), who now heads the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM). In January, NAM announced its launch of a new effort to get conservative judges on the bench.

Tom Donohue, president and CEO of the Chamber of Commerce, also has communicated his concerns about using the tactic to GOP leaders, according to sources. Members of the Chamber were not available for comment.

At least one high ranking Republican is listening.

In an interview with The Hill earlier this year, former Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) said he does not support using the constitutional option to thwart legislative filibusters.

Where, might one ask, will the Republicans find the 51 votes to overturn judicial filibusters? That's the right question to be asking, though the answer might surprise, as The Washington Post's Charles Babington notes:

Aides to Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) said yesterday that he soon will offer Democrats a compromise on the long-standing impasse, even though a growing number of conservative activists are pressing him to force a showdown now. Democrats predict the offer will be too flimsy to entice them to stop filibustering several appellate court nominees, but the mere fact that Frist is talking of negotiations, they say, convinces them he lacks the 51 votes he needs to change the filibuster rules in a chamber with 55 GOP members. [emphasis added]

Frist doesn't have the votes so he tries to whip up a fake compromise. Very surprising, Dr. Frist. Too bad for you the Democrats know how to count. Perhaps if you offer a real compromise, they'll listen; until then, send Mitch McConnell out to whip the caucus because the Democrats are not going to accept anything short of defending the United States Senate.