Will Congressional conservatives succeed in blocking far-left Obama nominee Dawn Johnsen from taking the post as head of the Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel? So far, Harry Reid says that he simply doesn’t have the votes to confirm her.

As Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) moves to ease a backlog of executive branch nominations, he suggested on Tuesday that he does not have the votes to bring up President Barack Obama’s pick to run the Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel.

“Right now we’re finding out when to do that,” Reid said, responding to a question about the status of Indiana University law professor Dawn Johnsen’s nomination to the Justice post. “We need a couple Republican votes until we can get to 60.”

For the record, the recently-converted Arlen Specter (D-PA) says he will continue to oppose her nomination. So Reid can’t reach the magic number for confirmation with Democrats alone. And there’s concern that other more moderate or conservative Democrats could block her as well. Senator Ben Nelson (D-NE) is pro-life and said to be “very concerned” about Johnsen’s nomination.

Meanwhile, Democrats hoped to block the Republican “hold” on the nominee for Interior depty secretary, David Hayes. The vote took place a short time ago, and Democrats fell short of the sixty votes required to invoke cloture. Harry Reid vows to do everything possible to get Hayes confirmed, though that outcome remains uncertain.

More: RedState.