politicophile

In case you missed it, John Roberts' nomination passed out of the Judiciary Committee today by a vote of 13-5. A full Senate vote will happen in the next few weeks.

Frankly speaking, there is no possibility that Roberts will fail to be confirmed in the full Senate: the question is simply one of vote counts. Even so, Roberts' nomination will have a significant effect on the next Bush appointment. As such, the vote count is extremely important. On the one hand, Democratic support for Roberts would make it easier for them to justify opposing a Janice Brown appointment the next time around. On the other, giving Roberts a mandate might encourage court moderates (Souter, Kennedy) to move to the right enough to accomodate their new Chief Justice.

Three Democrats on the Judiciary Committee defected to support Roberts. Republicans remained unanimously behind their party's candidate. Will the trend continue on the Senate floor or will the Republican momentum stall?

Politicophile's predicted votes for John Roberts: 73
That's:
Leahy
Feingold
Stabenow
Kohl
Landrieu
Nelson, Ben
Johnson
Baucus
Conrad
Cantwell
Lieberman
Clinton (This is the hardest vote to predict!)

Also include 54 Republicans: Chaffee might bail on them.

The hard vote total comes to: 66

But I think a few more Democrats might decide to support Roberts. Hence, my 73 prediction above.

What think you?

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The peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is, that it is robbing the human race; posterity as well as the existing generation; those who dissent from the opinion, still more than those who hold it. If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth: if wrong, they lose, what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error. ~John Stuart Mill, On Liberty