Machinations in the U.S. Senate to end the use of the filibuster to stop judicial nominations could peak as early as today.

As much as partisans on both sides would like to couch their arguments in grand ideals, the truth is uglier. The move by Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist to launch the “nuclear option” – given that moniker by former Senate leader Trent Lott – is about power. And while Democrats would be handed a short-term, strategic loss, the real losers are those moderate senators of both parties who are often the swing votes that must be cajoled to win passage of major legislation.

Maine’s two moderate senators, Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins, fall into this category. Just two weeks ago, the two senators were able to use their vote on a deeply flawed budget resolution – which sets the rules for government spending in the 2006-07 fiscal budget – to protect Bath Iron Works from a Navy plan that could have been disastrous for the shipyard and its 6,500 employees.

If Frist, spurred on by right-wing conservative groups seeking only the power to pack the courts with ideologues, is successful in using a parliamentary parlor trick to end the use of the filibuster, a simple majority of 51 senators will be all that is required to place someone on the federal bench for life. The middle, the moderates, who are quickly disappearing out of both parties, would lose their ability to help the left and the right find common ground. There will be no benefit to compromise. Look to Maine for an example: A difficult budget is passed – offensive to many – without significant Republican support because it can be. Both sides knew the score, and, when push came to shove, there was no reason to play nice.

The nuclear option would be the first step in turning the U.S. Senate into a glorified version of the House of Representatives, where majority rule is total and the minority can be completely ignored, except on the rare occasion when appealing to the other side can provide political cover.

The circumstances that have led to this showdown have been greatly exaggerated. According to the American Enterprise Institute, a right-of-center think tank in Washington, D.C., President Bush has had 96.6 percent of his judicial nominees confirmed. Compare that to President Clinton and Bush’s father. The first President Bush saw only 78.1 percent of his nominees installed, while Clinton was successful 87.9 percent of the time. Both, we are sure, would gladly have had as much success as the current President Bush.

While the crisis of judicial obstructionism is largely fabricated, the consequences of ending the judicial filibuster, which now forces 60 votes to end debate and move a nomination forward for an up-or-down vote, is real.

It’s possible to believe that Senate Democrats have too often used the filibuster, to believe that President Bush’s nominees deserve a vote, to be a loyal Republican and still oppose the efforts to undermine minority-party rights in the Senate.

Snowe and Collins have been the target of a lot of noise on the filibuster. Out-of-state groups are spending big money in the state to try to influence their votes. They occupy the vital center in America’s national politics and are viewed as open, independent and persuadable.

Frist’s effort to end the filibuster would undermine those very attributes that make senators, such as Snowe and Collins, so important. Hopefully, they will not support a maneuver that would hamper their own influence and make the Senate a cheapened imitation of itself.