Rue the Day – Harry Reid Goes Nuclear | Power Line.
Reid’s timing is a little puzzling. In the short-to-medium term, the rule change is more likely to benefit Republicans than Democrats. My guess is that we will have a Republican Senate in 2015 and a Republican president in 2017; if so, the precedent the Democrats set today will come back to haunt them with a vengeance. To cite just one example, it will now be possible to pass Obamacare repeal in the Senate with 51 Republican votes. (emphasis added)
Long-term, the filibuster is not a partisan issue. Both parties will be sometimes in the majority, and sometimes in the minority. Arguments for and against the filibuster strike me as inconclusive, so I would keep it. The filibuster has existed for a long time and is part of our political fabric. No one can fully foresee the consequences of doing away with it. The sound conservative approach, I think, is not to alter, without a compelling reason, an institution that has been part of our political life for going on 200 years.
This seems like a very short sighted move. As John Hinderaker mentioned elsewhere in his post. “The genie is out of the bottle”.
