Before Arlen Specter changed parties, he was the ranking Republican on the Judiciary Committee. With Specter now being a Democrat, a procedural rule of the Judiciary Committee may come into play.
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Senate Judiciary Committee Rule IV states:
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.
At this point, without Specter's vote as a Republican, the remaining Republican members of the Committee can block any nomination from going forward if they were to all vote against bringing the nominee to a vote.
Professor Michael Dorf summed up this irony on hi blog
What will it take to change Senate Judiciary Committee Rule IV in the event that the post-Specter-shift Republicans decide to play hardball? In today's Republican Party, Orrin Hatch and Lindsey Graham look like the best hopes to move Pres. Obama's nominee to the full Senate.
Yikes!