"It is expected that the Bush administration will have the opportunity to nominate one or more new Supreme Court justices in the next four years. We fervently hope the president will act in the spirit of his post-election address to the nation, and nominate mainstream justices we can all support. We know they won't be the justices we might have appointed, but if they are committed to our fundamental freedoms, including the right to privacy, separation of religion and state, and the other protections contained in the Bill of Rights, the bitter confirmation controversies that have occurred in the past, albeit rarely, can be avoided.

"However, talk that the US Senate will abandon its longstanding rules governing debate in order to confirm pending or new extremist nominees to lifetime seats on our federal courts is of great concern. The so-called 'nuclear option' that would end the ability of the Senate minority to delay votes on particularly objectionable nominees would overturn an 80-year-old practice designed to protect the minority's rights. Such a change would result in the unchecked steamrolling of extreme nominees through the approval process and the packing of the federal courts for a generation. Rather than relying on the Senate majority to run roughshod over a time-honored deliberative process, the administration should focus on selecting moderate nominees who could win bipartisan support."