What Senator on the Judiciary is going to be the one minority Senator to cut off debate now?

[usregimechange]

Pursuant to:

IV. BRINGING A MATTER TO A VOTE

The Chairman shall entertain a non-debatable motion to bring a matter before the Committee to a vote. If there is objection to bring the matter to a vote without further debate, a roll call vote of the Committee shall be taken, and debate shall be terminated if the motion to bring the matter to a vote without further debate passes with ten votes in the affirmative, one of which must be cast by the minority.
http://judiciary.senate.gov/about/committee-rules.cfm

...there must be a Senator for the minority party willing to cut off debate. Spector would have been most likely to do that but now who do we have?

Hatch
Grassley
Kyl
Sessions
Graham
Cornyn
Coburn

:shrug:

[ms liberty]

1. Grassley, Hatch, or Coburn would be my guess...n/t

[Arkana]

2. Hatch or Grassley.

Hatch, as much as it pains me to say this, is less crazy than his Republican colleagues--and Grassley's potentially on the hot seat in Iowa.

[depakid]

3. TPM had a bit on that a few days ago:

As I noted earlier, Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT)--the senior member of the Judiciary Committee behind (at least until today) Arlen Specter--can not become its ranking member. His staff confirms it. The rules of the Senate Republican Conference forbid it. Hatch was chairman of that committee from 1995-2001 (with a brief interruption in 2001 thanks to Jim Jeffords) and then again from 2003-2005, and conference rules stipulate that "nce a Senator has completed six years as Chairman of a committee, there will be no further opportunity for that Senator to serve as Ranking Member of that same committee if control of the Senate shifts and Republicans go into the Minority."

Behind Hatch, though, are Sens. Grassley (R-IA), Kyl (R-AZ), and Sessions (R-AL). Let's tackle them in reverse order.

1. Sessions is the ranking member of the Subcommittee on Admintstrative Oversight and the Courts. He's been around for a while and he's a real possibility especially considering the fact that,

2. Kyl, the GOP whip, is a member of the Senate's Republican Leadership. I haven't heard back from his staff yet, but the same rules that are keeping Hatch out would require him to abandon his leadership role.

3. Which brings us to Chuck Grassley, ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee. Grassley served as chairman of that committee in 2001 and again from 2003-2007, which means he's going to be running up against term limits on that committee fairly soon. Interestingly, though, the senior Republican on Finance is one Orrin Hatch. If Grassley decided to step down as the Finance Committee's ranking member a little bit early, he could swap out with Hatch and take over as ranking member of Judiciary Committee. Everybody wins.

http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/04/who-will-be-the-judiciary-committees-ranking-member.php

[ShadowLiberal]

4. Graham's a possibility

I forget where I read it, but in a news article about this problem someone said that Graham seems the most likely candidate to do this. While I'm a bit skeptical given him being from South Carolina, the guy is more reasonable then some of the other nutty right wingers. He got himself into trouble with the base by supporting immigration reform to help expand the republican base, he's also recently been warning how dangerous it is for the GOP to be so hostile to moderates like Specter.

I could also see Hatch voting to end the debate, he's already said he expects just about anyone Obama nominates to be approved easily as long as they aren't seriously underqualified for the job. He doesn't seem like a delusional right winger who explains away loses in blue states by saying the GOP wasn't being conservative enough there either.