“With Republicans looking increasingly likely to take control of the Senate, lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are already considering how they will operate in the chamber if the levers of power are reversed,” the Wall Street Journal reports.

“For Republicans, the prospect of controlling the Senate is sparking an early debate over whether to change the rules of the road, particularly those guiding nominations and the budget. Such rule changes are arcane but could have a big impact on legislation and who is confirmed to judicial- and executive-branch posts.”

“Democrats, too, would face choices, including how much of an impediment they want to be to a GOP-run Congress and who will lead them in that fight.”

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) “wants to get all must-pass legislation completed in the lame-duck session so Senate Republicans will have a clean slate at the start of 2015 if they control the upper chamber,” The Hill reports.

“Senate GOP aides say that’s the message from the leader, who could face opposition from conservative lawmakers who want to block any non-emergency measures in the window between Election Day and the start of the new Congress in January.”

“I would rather die than be in the United States Senate. Okay? I would be bored to death. Could you imagine me banging around that chamber with 99 other people — asking for a motion on the amendment in the subcommittee? Forget it.”

— Gov. Chris Christie (R), quoted by Business Insider.

The Army War College revoked Sen. John Walsh’s (D-MT) status as a graduate, citing plagiarism in his final paper submitted for a master’s degree, the Missoulian reports.

A Smart Politics analysis finds that if Greg Orman is elected in 2014 he would join Vermont’s Bernie Sanders and Maine’s Angus King as the first trio of independents ever to serve in the U.S. Senate at the same time.

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) issued a political call to arms for conservatives, saying that outgoing senators should not vote on a new Attorney General nominee during the post-election lame-duck session, the Washington Post reports.

Said Cruz: “Allowing Democratic senators, many of whom will likely have just been defeated at the polls, to confirm Holder’s successor would be an abuse of power that should not be countenanced.”

Ron Brownstein: “If Democrats lose their majority this year, it will extend a striking pattern: Since 1980, neither party has controlled the Senate for more than eight consecutive years. That persistent volatility marks a distinct change from most of the 20th century. Given the underlying trends in voting behavior, it’s likely the Senate will continue to experience fragile and fleeting majorities. And that points toward both more partisan conflict and mounting pressure to rewrite Senate rules–like the filibuster–in ways that strengthen the majority.”

“Don’t lose too much weight now. I like my girls chubby!”

— Former Sen. Daniel Inouye (D-HI), quoted by the New York Times, to Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY).

“If I could have just melted in tears, I would have. But I had to just sit there and talk to him and I switched the subject and I didn’t hear another word he said, but I wasn’t in a place where I could tell him to go fuck himself.”

— Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), in an interview on HuffPost Live, on a labor leader who told her she was too fat to win a statewide election.

USA Today: “The U.S. Senate has for years lived by a secret book of rules that governs everything from how many sheets of paper and potted plants each Senate office is allotted to when Senators can use taxpayer money to charter planes or boats. The document has never been available to the public — until now.”

U.S. Senate Handbook:

• Table of Contents
• Part I: Administration
• Part I: Appendices
• Part II: Equipment and Services
• Part IV: Financial Management
• Part IV: Appendices

Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) “says she has yet to make up her mind about seeking a fifth term in 2016, but there’s no shortage of signs that the Democrat may be opting out,” the San Francisco Chronicle reports.

“It’s not just that she has less than $200,000 in her campaign account, compared with $3.5 million at this stage before her last election fight. Some comments from those who know the 73-year-old senator are also telling.”

Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) “has a game plan to confront President Barack Obama with a stark choice next year: Accept bills reining in the administration’s policies or risk a government shutdown,” Politico reports.

“In an extensive interview here, the typically reserved McConnell laid out his clearest thinking yet of how he would lead the Senate if Republicans gain control of the chamber. The emerging strategy: Attach riders to spending bills that would limit Obama policies on everything from the environment to health care, consider using an arcane budget tactic to circumvent Democratic filibusters and force the president to ‘move to the center’ if he wants to get any new legislation through Congress.”

Sen. John Walsh’s (D-MT) “political career appears to be over, but plagiarism allegations could have far-reaching implications for his military career, too,” The Hill reports.

“Walsh, who was the upper chamber’s lone Iraq War veteran, withdrew from the Senate race this week after reports he allegedly plagiarized roughly a quarter of his 14-page Army War College thesis.”

“The lethal injection needs to be an indeed lethal injection and not the bollocks-upped situation that just prevailed. That’s torture.”

— Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), quoted by Politico.

Washington Post: “The Senate went three months this spring without voting on a single legislative amendment, the nitty-gritty kind of work usually at the heart of congressional lawmaking. So few bills have been approved this year, and so little else has gotten done, that many senators say they are spending most of their time on insignificant and unrewarding work.”

More color: “Senators say that they increasingly feel like pawns caught between Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-NV) and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), whose deep personal and political antagonisms have almost immobilized the Senate. The two men so distrust each other, and each is so determined to deny
the other even the smallest political success, that their approach to
running the Senate has been reduced to a campaign of mutually assured
dysfunction.”

Republican senators blocked legislation that would have required private employers with religious interests to pay for birth control as part of their health insurance benefits, Roll Call reports.

The Senate rejected, by a 56-43 vote, the first procedural motion to advance the bill. Sixty votes were needed to limit debate on the motion to proceed. Republican members Susan Collins (R-ME), Mark Kirk (R-IL) and Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) voted with nearly all Democrats in favor of cloture.

Washington Post: “Like a high schooler collecting yearbook messages before summer break, Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) is roaming the halls of the Senate before August recess asking his peers to pose for selfies… Booker wants to photograph himself cheek to cheek all 99 senators (there’s a lot of free time on Capitol Hill these days) and he’s up to 10 since starting this project four weeks ago.”

The photos are posted on Instagram.

“It appears that the Republicans in the Senate have intentionally left on the emergency break.”

— Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), quoted by The Hill, adding that Republicans are trying to “run out the clock” before the November elections in order to make Democrats look bad.