The decision by Harry Reid and Senate Democrats to alter filibuster rules not only serves as a precarious experiment, but as a nod to modern politics.
Last week, Reid, D-Nevada, the Senate majority leader, transformed long-held tradition by eliminating the filibuster for federal judicial nominees and executive-office appointments. The filibuster still will be in play for Supreme Court nominees and for legislation — at least for now.
Now, all of this might sound like inside baseball — political minutiae that in the end has little impact on Joe and Jane Sixpack. And it is, in a way. The filibuster option has provided the minority party with the ability to block nominees or legislation, provided that party has at least 41 votes in the Senate. The practical result long has been to lend a bit of decorum to the U.S. Senate, to ensure that minority opinions are considered rather than the majority-rule raucousness that can be found in the U.S. House of Representatives.
As one senator said in 2005, when changes to the filibuster were previously discussed, “What I worry about would be you essentially have still two chambers — the House and the Senate — but you have simply majoritarian absolute power on either side, and that’s just not what the founders intended.”