In the end, most Senate observers thought it would come down to the relationships between senior members: committee chairs and ranking members who wanted to get something done besides the judgeship war.
At least he should be able to spot a losing argument: The Senate is scheduled to consider the nomination of Rhode Island plaintiff attorney Jack McConnell for a federal judgeship on Thursday.
Then, in a clever bit of judgeship designed to avoid deciding the case on a broader constitutional basis than necessary, the court said since Prop. 8 only involved the use of a word and the state could have no compelling reason to deny one class of people the use of that word the voter initiative was invalid from the start.