http://story.news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050519/ap_on_go_co/filibuster_fightWASHINGTON - Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid accused President Bush Thursday of trying to "rewrite the Constitution and reinvent reality" in a drive to weaken Senate filibuster rules and install out-of-the-mainstream conservatives on the federal bench.
But the Senate's second-ranking Republican accused Democrats of "unprecedented obstruction" that prevented confirmation votes and upended more than two centuries of tradition.
Reid and Sen. Mitch McConnell (news, bio, voting record), R-Ky., made their comments on the second day of debate over Bush's stalled nominees and venerable filibuster rules as centrists struggled unsuccessfully for a compromise that could avert a showdown. "I don't know whether we're going to have it in the next hour or not at all, but you have to keep working," said Sen. Ben Nelson (news, bio, voting record), D-Neb., emerging from the closed-door session.
Both parties used staged events off the Senate floor to push racial politics to the forefront.
Restricting the ability of Democrats to block final votes on several of Bush's most controversial nominees "would be particularly offensive to people of color," members of the Congressional Black Caucus wrote Majority Leader Bill Frist during the day. "All of the major legislation that today bars racial discrimination in voting, employment and housing was passed after filibusters" were broken, it said.