Justice Samuel Alito, the Senate and the nation owe a great debt to the Gang of 14. The Gang took a lot of heat from both the left and right, but it succeeded in preserving the Senate’s character while indicating a path for the John Roberts and Alito confirmations.

Consider the momentous past eight months. The Senate was headed for a showdown. Democrats were filibustering a number of high-profile nominees for the circuit courts, and Republicans were ready to get around the filibuster by a questionable rules change that would effectively eliminate filibusters on all future judicial nominees. Senate leaders of both parties favored the showdown, but the bipartisan group thumbed their noses at their own leadership and their own party activists and fashioned a compromise.

The most important part of the deal was the agreement regarding future nominations. Seven Republicans vowed not to abolish the filibuster, and seven Democrats agreed not to filibuster judicial nominees except in “extraordinary circumstances.” While vague in theory, what this meant in practice was that these 14 senators would have to trust each other and work things through in the future. They would have to talk to each other. And talk they did, meeting several times on the Roberts, Harriet Miers and Alito nominations.

The group never gave an exact definition of “extraordinary circumstances.” What it came to mean was that Bush could appoint a conservative and expect an up-or-down vote but that he might be in trouble if he chose an in-your-face nominee or someone with ethical problems.

Bush’s nominations hewed to this formula. Roberts and Alito are conservatives, but ones with impeccable credentials, modest judicial temperaments and support from Democrats in the legal community. They had worked for Republican administrations but had not hit the lecture circuit as conservative activists or used their judicial opinions to become icons of the conservative movement. Roberts and Alito are for Bush what Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer were for Clinton.

Imagine if Bush had nominated Michael Luttig or Edith Jones, both of whom are high on liberal target lists for their outspoken conservatism. Or if Bush had pushed Priscilla Owen or Janice Rogers Brown, he would have tweaked Democrats who had just fought their circuit-court appointments. One of those nominees might have been confirmed, but it would have made the discussions of the Gang of 14 much more uncomfortable and might have led to a filibuster and the “nuclear” or “constitutional” option.

The Gang of 14 position on filibusters shaped the outcome of the Alito nomination. After the hearings, Democrats knew they could not beat him or sustain a filibuster against him. Their strategy was to avoid the filibuster but show strength by mustering more than 40 votes against him. The John Kerry-led filibuster blew up this strategy, and Democrats ended up weakening their show of opposition to Alito by the fact that they could only muster 25 votes against cloture, even though they showed 42 votes against his confirmation.

Finally, don’t think that the nomination parade is over. Later this year, Justice Antonin Scalia will mark his 20th year on the Supreme Court. As there are no guarantees about either the 2006 or 2008 elections, Scalia may choose to step down if he wants to ensure his replacement will be made by a Republican president and Senate. A conservative replacement for Scalia might not change the balance of the court, but it would set all of the usual forces in motion again.

Hats off to the Gang of 14 for making the Senate play the role it should in the judicial confirmation process.

Fortier is a research fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.