Gang of 14

The Gang of 14 was a phrase coined to describe the bipartisan group of Senators in the 109th United States Congress who successfully, at the time, negotiated a compromise in the spring of 2005 to avoid the deployment of the so-called "nuclear option" by Senate Republicans over an organized use of the filibuster by Senate Democrats. The term alludes to the phrase "Gang of Four", used in China to refer to four ex-leaders blamed for the abuses during the rule of Mao Zedong.

Senate Democrats used the filibuster to prevent the confirmation of conservative appellate court candidates nominated by Republican President George W. Bush. In the Republican-controlled 108th Congress, ten Bush judicial nominees were filibustered by the minority Democrats: Miguel Estrada, Priscilla Owen, Charles W. Pickering, Carolyn Kuhl, David W. McKeague, Henry Saad, Richard Allen Griffin, William H. Pryor, William Gerry Myers III, and Janice Rogers Brown.

As a result of these ten filibusters, Senate Republicans began to threaten to change the existing Senate rules by using what Senator Trent Lott termed the "nuclear option" and which Republicans tended to call the "constitutional option". This change in rules would eliminate filibusters of judicial confirmation votes.

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