Five-term Senator Carl Levin is the point man among Senate Democrats in blocking an up-or-down vote on three Michigan judges nominated by President George Bush to the Sixth U.S. Court of Appeals in Cincinnati.

But it's first-term Sen. Debbie Stabenow, up for reelection next year, who could pay the price if:

• The bitter partisan stalemate of judicial filibusters results in loss of Michigan seats on a court that has far too many vacancies and most often is the final word on Michigan cases.

• The current Capitol Hill war on "the nuclear option" of limiting use of filibusters leads to its use by Republicans and prompts Democrats to deliver on their threat to retaliate by using procedural steps to essentially close down Senate business.

Democrats so far have succeeded in blocking floor votes on seven judicial nominees, including U.S. District Judge David McKeague of Lansing, and Michigan Court of Appeals Judges Richard Griffin of Traverse City and Henry Saad of Birmingham.

Payback is at play here, as Levin has made an issue of Republicans, prompted by then-Sen. Spencer Abraham, refusing even to hold hearings on two of ex-President Bill Clinton's Michigan nominees to the same court.

If the Michigan Three are deep-sixed by inaction, Republicans will try to use the issue against Stabenow.

The Rev. Keith Butler, a former Detroit city councilman who is a candidate for the Republican nomination to oppose Stabenow, said on his recent announcement tour stop in Traverse City: "It's going to be a factor. We've had several Michigan judges who can't get an up or down vote because she has obstructed it for no reason. It would be different if the candidates were not qualified or there was some ethical or moral problem. But the reason why she is obstructing it is simply for political reasons. The end result is we have a shortage on the bench . . . She's going to pay a price for that."

Stabenow is not "the" obstructionist. When I suggested to Butler that it is Levin who long ago dug in his heels on the issue and Senate Democrats have taken a caucus position on judicial nominees, Butler said: "Listen, you do the right thing whether Carl Levin does it or not."

Butler echoed the concern by ex-Gov. John Engler and other Republicans that the current vacancies on the Sixth Circuit bench could be filled by appointees from another state.

One Republican closely following the battle is Attorney General Mike Cox. His brother, Wayne County Circuit Judge Sean Cox, as a late 2004 Bush nominee for the U.S. District Court for Eastern Michigan, is not in current headlines but looms as another Michigan pawn in the Capitol Hill battle.

Cox, who notes that no state has as many judicial nominees in limbo than Michigan, said in Traverse City, "it's crazy" what's happening regarding the "crisis" at the Court of Appeals, where at "any given time (Michigan) has 230 to 240 matters" (pending). He said the number of judges there is "down 25 percent. They are missing four people that would be from Michigan. Instead of 16, they have 12 right now."

As for the impact on the 2006 Senate race, Cox acknowledged: "It is very hard to explain to the general public this judicial impasse. But if there's not one of Bush's people voted on, that's pretty easy to explain over what will then be six years."

Cox said that the judicial impasse matter was effectively used by Bush when he campaigned for Republicans who defeated such Democrats as Sen. Max Cleland of Georgia in 2002 and Tom Daschle of South Dakota in 2004.

Cox argues "there is no principled way" that Levin and Stabenow could say all judicial candidates being blocked by Democrats from a floor vote "are nuts, and to their credit they haven't" made such a blanket indictment on ideology. He noted that they are, instead, saying, "why doesn't the president do this bipartisan thing?" of compromising.

That's not how the system works. A president makes appointments, and the Senate confirms – or not.

Vote them up or down, as Sens. Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts, Patrick Leahy of Vermont and other Democrats have demanded in the past when the tables were turned.

Griffin Defended by Democrat

Michigan Court of Appeals Judge Griffin, whose district includes all of the Upper Peninsula and the northern lower, has received a ringing endorsement for federal appointment from a Democratic judge who serves with Griffin on the same state bench.

Michigan Court of Appeals Judge Stephen Borrello of Saginaw, a onetime Democratic activist and former attorney for labor unions, is not about to support a corporate stooge for appointment to a federal judgeship.

Borrello in 2003 was the first appellate judge appointed by new Gov. Jennifer Granholm. The two had served as co-chairs of Senator Levin's 1998 selection committee on candidates for the federal benches in the Eastern District of Michigan.

So it is worthy of note that the ex-labor litigator and ex-chairman of the Saginaw County Democratic Committee has sharply criticized those who have "defamed" Griffin.

In an April 18 e-mail to the liberal People for American Way organization, Borrello protested that on its website "you seek to portray Judge Richard Griffin as an anti-union, anti-worker jurist . . . Nothing could be further from the truth."

Borrello said, "By deliberately placing Judge Griffin along side jurists with whom the general public may have legitimate questions, you have both defamed him and made it abundantly clear that your organization is nothing more than a shill for the Democratic Party."

The Associated Press reported that Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid had been quietly talking with Majority Leader Bill Frist about confirming Griffin and McKeague in exchange for Republicans dropping Saad in favor of an alternative favored by Levin and Stabenow – but only as part of a broader compromise in which Republicans would abandon threats to ban judicial filibusters.

That was understandably rejected by Frist and the White House – which said, "Senate Democrats need to stop playing politics and give all judicial nominees an up or down vote."

On Wednesday, Levin and Stabenow issued this terse statement: "It appears that Senator Frist has rejected the option of a bipartisan compromise. We continue to support a bipartisan resolution that includes the Sixth Circuit Court."

George Weeks is the political columnist for The Detroit News and is syndicated by Superior Features.