The New York Times profiles Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), noting how she challenged Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL), one of the most powerful men in the Senate, to support her bill to address sexual assault in the military.

“She defies her party in smaller ways: After a bipartisan farm bill was cobbled together with great effort by her colleague Debbie Stabenow of Michigan, Ms. Gillibrand tried to block cuts to food stamps that other Democrats said were needed to retain Republican support and brought in high-profile foodies from New York, including the celebrity chef Tom Colicchio, to fight it.”

“Her other tactics include cornering colleagues on the Senate floor and refusing to stop talking, and popping out a news release picking apart a senator’s competing legislation as it is being announced.”

National Journal: “Republicans have no proportional counterattacks now that the majority leader has scorched the filibuster on nominees. But that doesn’t mean they don’t have any means to strike back. There are plenty of procedural tools GOP senators can use to extract smaller wins or inflict some pain on Democrats in the interim, but ultimately the best way for the minority to retaliate is to win a majority in 2014, say Capitol Hill strategists and advisers.”

“The Senate’s reliance on unanimous consent to pass many bills provides Senate Republicans with a powerful lever to pull. UC is often used to move noncontroversial bills quickly through the upper chamber. Some Republicans say that’s not likely to happen as often now.”

Said one former GOP aide: “There will be no UCs. You won’t be able to get a UC to go to the bathroom.”

“It will poison the atmosphere of the Senate.”

— Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), in an interview on Bloomberg TV, on the filibuster rule change.

“The White House and its allies are formulating ways to take maximum advantage of this week’s change in the Senate’s filibuster rules to rapidly confirm more than 240 judicial and executive nominees awaiting approval,” the Washington Post reports.

“Democrats hope to break a logjam in President Obama’s appointments, allowing him to push ahead with key parts of his agenda. But they also acknowledge that the political environment remains difficult, with many procedural tactics still available to Republicans intent on blocking his nominees.”

Jon Stewart: “It’s just like Hiroshima of voting.”

[Read more…]

First Read highlights what really triggered yesterday’s rules change in the U.S. Senate:

“It used to be that the up-or-down vote was what ultimately mattered. But over the last few years, interest groups and partisan media began holding senators accountable for their cloture votes. It was no longer good enough to simply vote against a nominee on final passage; you also had to vote to deny that nominee the 60 votes needed to even consider the nomination… Bottom line: This trend wasn’t going to end.”

“By the way, another reason Reid may have decided now was the time to
pull this trigger: If Republicans do take control of the Senate in 2014,
it would mean judicial nominations would probably come to a screeching
halt in 2015 and 2016, so this is essentially the Democrats’ last year
to impact the makeup of the federal courts.”

Wonk Wire: Two contrasting views of the nuclear option.

President Obama “will get a short-term lift for his nominees, judicial and otherwise, but over the immediate horizon, the strong-arm move by Senate Democrats on Thursday to limit filibusters could usher in an era of rank partisan warfare beyond even what Americans have seen in the past five years,” the New York Times reports.

“Ultimately, a small group of centrists — Republicans and Democrats — could find the muscle to hold the Senate at bay until bipartisan solutions can be found. But for the foreseeable future, Republicans, wounded and eager to show they have not been stripped of all power, are far more likely to unify against the Democrats who humiliated them in such dramatic fashion.”

The Washington Post notes the move “should make it easier for President Obama to accomplish key second-term priorities, including tougher measures on climate change and financial regulation, that have faced intense opposition from Republicans in Congress.”

Wonk Wire: Why Harry Reid needed to invoke the “nuclear option.”

The Fix: “Thursday was a landmark day in political Washington. The Senate changed its rules on filibusters for the first time in its history — opening a potential Pandora’s Box that may very well lead to a future of majority-only votes in the world’s greatest deliberative body. The implications for the Senate’s traditions as well as how it functions day-to-day are hard to overstate.”

“And yet, for the world outside of Washington, invoking the nuclear option and the changing of filibuster rules are non-happenings — moments that barely register and almost certainly will have zero impact on who they vote for in the coming midterm elections.”

Congressional scholar Norm Ornstein told First Read the blame for invoking the “nuclear option” in the Senate was squarely on Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY).

Said Ornstein: “This was an in-your-face, go-ahead-I-dare-you equivalent of a bully saying, ‘Go ahead and hit me,’ When the other kid says, ‘No,’ you spit in his face, kick him in the groin and force him to go ahead and do it.”

After Democrats invoked the “nuclear option” today, GOP senators pledged to push conservative judges through the Senate as soon as they get the chance.

But as First Read notes, “they will need to do two things come 2016: 1) win the White House and 2) control the U.S. Senate.”

“As it turns out, Republicans are poised to make Senate gains in the 2014 midterms — and maybe even win control of the chamber — due to the favorable battleground… But 2016 is a different story. In that ’16 cycle — a presidential year — Republicans will have to defend more Senate seats (24) than Democrats will (10).”

New York Times: “Inside the Senate, furious Republicans who portrayed the Democratic action as a blatant power grab will no doubt try to exact revenge by further slowing the chamber’s activities and making life as complicated as possible for Democrats. Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader and an expert student of Senate rules, made it clear that Democrats would rue this day.”

Said McConnell: “But if they want to play games and set yet another precedent that they will no doubt come to regret, well that’s a choice only they can make.”

“Democrats say Republicans have been so successful in slowing the Senate that there is little more they can do to paralyze the institution, part of the reason that Democrats were finally willing to make the change.”

“I think what we really need is an anti-bullying ordinance in the Senate. I mean, now we’ve got a big bully, Harry Reid says he’s just going to break the rules and make new rules. Never been done this way before.”

— Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), quoted by Politico.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) pushed forward a vote to allow presidential nominations to go forward with a simple majority vote.

The vote was 52 to 48, mainly along party lines. Sens. Joe Manchin (D-WV), Mark Pryor (D-AR) and Carl Levin (D-MI) voted against changing the rules.

Roll Call says the “new precedent represents what’s likely to prove the most
significant change in Senate rules since 1975, when the cloture
threshold was reduced to 60 votes in most cases (from two-thirds of
senators present and voting).”

First Read: “It’s true in physics and in politics: For every action, there’s an opposite and equal reaction. And so after Senate Republican filibustered President Obama’s nominees to sit on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals — not on concerns about ideology or qualifications, but over the president’s ability to appoint ANYONE to these vacancies — Senate Democrats are poised to change the rules via the so-called ‘nuclear option.'”

“And while this may seem like a threat you’ve heard before, this time it seems as if there isn’t any deal that will derail this likely action. Senate Democratic aides confirm to First Read that they’re expected to vote today to change the rules to eliminate the 60-vote threshold for all executive appointments, except to the U.S. Supreme Court.”

Wonk Wire: Filibuster reform now? Why not?

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) “is prepared to move forward with a vote that could severely limit the minority party’s ability to filibuster presidential nominees, possibly as early as this week,” the New York Times reports.

“Exasperated with the refusal of Senate Republicans to confirm many of President Obama’s nominees, Mr. Reid has been speaking individually with members of his caucus to gauge whether there is enough support to change filibuster rules.”

Former LBJ aide Bobby Baker “in recent years quietly recorded an even more unvarnished account of his anything-goes-era in Washington,” Politico reports.

“His recollections–of an age when senators drank all day, indulged in sexual dalliances with secretaries and constituents, accepted thousands of dollars in bribes and still managed to pass the most important legislation of the 20th century–were collected by Donald Ritchie of the Senate Historical Office in interviews with Baker in 2009 and 2010. The resulting 230-page manuscript was so ribald and riveting, so salacious and sensational, that the Historical Office refrained from its usual practice of posting such interviews online.”

The Senate passed the Employment Non-Discrimination Act “in a tempered win for gay rights advocates who still need a reluctant, GOP-controlled House to take up and pass the bill,” Roll Call reports.

“The bill, if it were to become law, would set a federal non-discrimination standard to ensure that private employers cannot fire employees based on their sexual orientation or identity.”

“Ten Republicans joined all Democrats to pass the gay rights bill, while 32 Republicans voted against the measure.”

Norm Ornstein:
“If the other two D.C. Circuit nominees are filibustered and blocked, I
would support Harry Reid’s move to change the rules now, to move from a
60-vote requirement to stop debate and vote to a 40-vote requirement to
continue debate. The argument that if he does so, Republicans will do
the same thing when they take the White House and Senate is a bad one:
Can anyone doubt that McConnell would blow up the filibuster rule in a
nanosecond if he had the ability to fill all courts with radical
conservatives like Janice Rogers Brown for decades to come? I hope it
does not come to this–and that the problem solvers in the Senate keep
their titles, preserve their institution, and stop the filibuster
madness.”