Taegan Goddard's Political Wire

April 28, 2009

A Filibuster-Proof Majority?

With Sen. Arlen Specter's party switch -- and Al Franken's expected seating -- President Obama has an opportunity to remove a major procedural roadblock in the Senate that his predecessors would have envied.

Karen Tumulty: "How long has it been? You have to go all the way back to 1937 to find the last American President who enjoyed what was, in practice, a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate, according to Senate Associate Historian Donald Ritchie."

Politico quotes Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-ME): "We're heading to having the smallest political tent in history, the way things are unfolding."

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Taegan D. Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political web sites.

Goddard spent more than a decade as managing director and chief operating officer of a prominent investment firm in New York City. Previously, he was a policy adviser to a U.S. Senator and Governor.

Goddard is also co-author of You Won - Now What? (Scribner, 1998), a political management book hailed by prominent journalists and politicians from both parties. In addition, Goddard's essays on politics and public policy have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country, including the Washington Post, USA Today, Boston Globe, San Francisco Chronicle, Chicago Tribune, Philadelphia Inquirer and Christian Science Monitor.

Goddard earned degrees from Vassar College and Harvard University. He lives in New York with his wife and three sons.

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