Senate Goes Nuclear, Kinda

Here's a pretty good explanation by Daily Kos about what happened in the Senate last night. Sensationalist headline about 'nuclear option' in the Senate! But not quite so.. Here's Kevin Drum and Ezra Klein on it and Suzy Khimm gives a little more background.

So the actual issue was small and unimportant. What was significant is that Harry Reid, while annoyed at Republican delaying tactics, called a vote and had the Senate overturn the parlimentarian via a majority vote. This is perfectly legit but rarely done. It's essentially changing the rules of the Senate which are agreed on at the start of each two year term. It's way the Republicans threatened a few years ago to overturn the filibuster the Democrats (novelly) used on some judicial nominations.

So it's odd that Reid did this, that is opened this can of worms and it's odd that he did it on this kind of thing and that he got 51 Democrats to go along with it. People now view it as more likely that when the Republicans have the majority (perhaps after 2012) they will change things and limit the minority's powers. Then again, if you believe the Senate is broken because you need 60% do anything, then you wonder why he didn't do more.