Orrin Hatch, the Utah Republican, viewed the tactic with disdain at the time, saying, "By using filibusters on judges, the Democrats have essentially imposed a supermajority requirement, and we are entitled to stop them".
Senate Democrats used filibusters on Friday to block three of President Bush's judicial nominees, two of them for the first time, immediately after nearly 40 hours of debate in which Republicans complained about how the Democrats had been rejecting Mr. Bush's candidates for the bench.
Democrats have used filibusters to prevent votes on the Senate floor for 10 of Mr. Bush's 214 nominees.
Democrats, who are in the minority and cannot block any of Mr. Bush's nominees on a straight up-or-down vote, have used filibusters to prevent votes on two appeals court nominees.
Instead, these pretend "conservatives" have used the filibuster on even the most routine matters, insisting that nothing can happen in the Senate without the minority's approval.
The three-part proposal by New Mexico Sen. Tom Udall and a number of his colleagues would prohibit the use of the filibuster on the initial motion to begin debate on a measure.
But the GOP says that the Democratic use of the filibuster on the Senate floor against Bush's nominees is without precedent.
Ms. Landrieu, like Mr. Graham, helped negotiate the 2005 pact that limited the use of filibusters on judicial nominees to all but "extraordinary circumstances".
"Once this change occurs, as several of my members pointed out, you've gone back to what was the tradition of the Senate prior to the time that Senator Schumer convinced the Democrats to start doing this," McConnell said, pinning the more aggressive use of filibusters on current Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, who at the time was a first-term Democrat from New York.
The Republicans have time and again used the filibuster, the threat of filibuster, holds on nominations and other tactics to block confirmations.
