threaten to change the existing Senate rules by using what Senator Trent Lott termed the "nuclear option". This change in rules would eliminate the use of the filibuster to prevent judicial confirmation votes. However, with only a two-vote majority, the Republicans were in a weak position to implement this procedural maneuver. Circumstances changed in 2005, due to the 2004 elections. With President Bush winning re-election and the Republicans increasing their Senate majority to 55—45 for the 109th Congress, the "nuclear option" became a more viable strategy to ensure confirmation. On May 24, 2005, seven moderate senators of each party, called the Gang of 14, in a deal to avoid the use of the "nuclear option", agreed to drop the filibuster against three of the seven remaining affected court of appeals nominees (Owen, Brown, and Pryor) but not two others (Saad and Myers). In addition, the senators in the group agreed to block future judicial filibusters except in cases involving "extraordinary circumstances". As a direct result of the deal, the two filibustered nominees not mentioned in it (McKeague and Griffin) were confirmed. Despite these agreements, however, some observers noted that the chances were still high that the Democrats would filibuster any of the ten originally filibustered nominees if subsequently nominated to the Supreme Court, especially Owen, Pryor or Brown. There was also speculation that the Democrats would filibuster any Supreme Court nominee who would change the ideological composition of the court. Historically, although there have been several unsuccessful Supreme Court nominations, only one has been defeated because its opponents were able to successfully maintain a filibuster. This occurred in 1968, when Senate supporters of incumbent Associate Justice Abe Fortas’ nomination to succeed Earl Warren as chief justice lost a vote to invoke cloture by a 45—43 vote, prompting President Lyndon Johnson to withdraw the nomination. When conservative judge John Roberts was nominated to succeed conservative Chief Justice William Rehnquist in September 2005, the confirmation process went relatively smoothly with no threat of a filibuster. Four months later, the filibuster conjecture was disproved. When Bush chose another conservative judge, Samuel Alito, to replace moderate Associate Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, opponents of Alito could not generate enough votes to prevent cloture from being invoked (72—25) on his nomination. The next day, January 31, 2006, the Senate confirmed the Alito nomination 58—42. Consultations with the U.S. Senate As the 2004–2005 term of the Supreme