ACU Will Score Filibuster Vote in 2005 'Rating of Congress'

ACU takes rare step of announcing in advance the scoring of a vote in its definitive conservative rating of Congress

ALEXANDRIA, VA - The American Conservative Union today announced it would score the Senate procedural vote to end the Democrats' filibuster of President Bush's judicial nominees in its annual Rating of Congress, the gold standard scorecard among conservatives.

"ACU rarely announces in advance the votes it will score," said ACU Chairman David A. Keene. "Our decision to announce that we will score the upcoming vote to end the filibuster demonstrates clearly how important ACU regards the need to restore fairness and the historic practices of the Senate on the issue of nominees to the federal bench."

"All of the highly qualified filibustered nominees deserve a fair up-or-down floor vote if the Senate is to fulfill its obligation under the Constitution. Republicans cannot permit a minority to change the rules and raise the bar to 60 votes needed to confirm judges. In 214 years of its history, this has never been the custom of the Senate. Such a change would be intolerable.

"ACU urges Majority leader Bill Frist to move forward with his plans to restore fairness to the process. ACU also urges all Republicans as well as fair-minded Democrats to support the Majority Leader," Keene said. "Simple fairness requires all nominees to be given an up-or-down vote."

ACU's annual Rating of Congress has been published for 34 years. The Ratings can be viewed at www.acuratings.org.