Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) told an emotional story at a memorial service for the late Sen. Daniel Inouye’s (D-HI) about how he escorted former Sen. Bob Dole (R-KS), Inouye’s longtime friend and a fellow wounded World War II hero, to pay their respects to Inouye at the Capitol Rotunda, the Honolulu Star-Advertiser reports.

Reid recounted how Dole, who usually uses a wheelchair, insisted on walking up to the casket.

Said Dole: “Danny’s not going to see me in a wheelchair.”

Dole, who lost the use of his right arm in combat, struggled to the casket, but “he got up there and, soldier to soldier, he saluted him with his left hand.”

“We are exactly where our first president George Washington warned us not to go, where members of Congress would put the interest of their party or political faction, as Washington described it, higher than the interest of our country.”

— Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT), in an interview with ABC News.

Smart Politics finds that Sen. Daniel Inouye (D-HI), who died yesterday, served alongside a total of 412 men and women in the U.S. Senate over his career of nearly 50 years. Among those were 218 Democrats, 189 Republicans, three independents, one Conservative, and one from the Independence Party.

“Included among these 412 Senators were 14 from Minnesota, 13 each from Illinois and Tennessee, 12 from Colorado, Florida, and North Carolina, 11 from California, Georgia, New Hampshire, and Virginia, and 10 each from Missouri, New York, and Ohio.”

Sen. Daniel Inouye (D-HI) wrote a letter to Hawaii Gov. Neil Abercrombie (D) urging him to appoint Rep. Colleen Hana­busa (D-HI) as his successor just before he succumbed to respiratory problems at a Bethesda, Md., hospital, the Honolulu Star Advertiser reports.

The Washington Post notes that less than two hours after Sen. Daniel Inouye died, the Senate passed a resolution naming Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) as the new president pro tempore.

Inouye’s death “also marks a significant generational shift in Senate history: Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) will be the only — and likely the final — veteran of World War II serving in the Senate next year.”

“The death of Hawaii’s senior senator also creates a vacancy atop the powerful Senate Appropriations Committee. Here too Leahy is next in line, giving him the right of first refusal to the chairman’s gavel.”

Sen. Daniel Inouye (D-HI) died today of a respiratory ailment, “ending a life of remarkable service for his country and Hawaii that included sacrificing his right arm in World War II combat and spending 50 years as a U.S. senator,” the Honolulu Star Advertiser reports. He was 88 years old.

According to his office, Inouye’s last word was “Aloha.”

Roll Call: “He was seen using oxygen around the Capitol before being admitted to George Washington University hospital. It was explained at the time that because of a misdiagnosis of lung cancer several decades ago, Inouye had part of one of his lungs removed, causing the need for the oxygen treatment. Other news outlets have reported that Inouye may also have suffered from emphysema.”

The Week: Not since FDR has a president transformed so many senators into Cabinet secretaries.

Supporters of the “talking filibuster” are closing in on the majority needed to reform the rules, according to a whip count compiled by the Huffington Post.

“Nailing down at least 50 votes, however, doesn’t guarantee success. Advocates worry that Reid may use the prospect of victory on the most ambitious reform to persuade Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) to cave and agree to a milder set of reforms. Those would likely include provisions that would speed up the pace of action in the Senate without altering the fundamental nature of minority rights.”

Retiring Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) told WFSB-TV that it is time for sweeping changes in the way the United States chooses its leaders and said he supports the elimination of the electoral college and supports term limits for his colleagues in the Senate.

Said Lieberman: “My position on this has changed. Some say there are term limits for senators every six years and it is up to voters to decide. When I started here (24 years ago) I was 99th in seniority, and now I am 20th, so it does change, but needs to change more often… I think it would make the senate less partisan and healthier if it turned over more often.”

He also said he was surprised there wasn’t a movement after the 2000 election to eliminate the electoral college.

Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN) told the Tennessean that if Senate Democrats carry out a dramatic maneuver to change one of the institution’s most revered traditions, the filibuster, it will be “the end of the United States Senate.”

Alexander says the Senate “will become just like the House,” where a simple majority vote wins every time and the chamber loses its historic function of acting as a brake on popular proposals to give them more judicious consideration.

Sen. Robert Menendez (D-NJ) employed as an unpaid intern in his Senate office an illegal immigrant who was a registered sex offender, now under arrest by immigration authorities, the AP reports.

The Homeland Security Department instructed federal agents not to arrest him until after Election Day.

Associated Press: “Sen. John Kerry is angling to be the nation’s top diplomat by being, well, diplomatic. The longtime Democratic lawmaker from Massachusetts has largely stayed quiet while President Obama considers him for the next secretary of state. Kerry has asked his supporters to avoid overt lobbying of the White House on his behalf. And he’s defended his chief rival for the post, Susan Rice, amid Republican criticism of her initial explanation of the attack on Americans in Benghazi, Libya. Kerry’s strategy reflects what people close to the senator say is his disdain for some aspects of Washington’s personnel politics.”

White House Communications Director Dan Pfeiffer tells the Huffington Post that President Obama supports efforts to reform the filibuster process in the U.S. Senate.

Said Pfeiffer: “The President has said many times that the American people are demanding action. They want to see progress, not partisan delay games. That hasn’t changed, and the President supports Senator Reid’s efforts to reform the filibuster process.”

Daily Beast: The coming filibuster war.

Sen.-elect Tim Kaine (D-VA) told the Richmond Times-Dispatch he hopes to remain in the U.S. Senate a long time.

Said Kain: “I want to do more. I decided when I ran: Don’t do this unless you think this is likely to be the last job you have in your life. I want to do it, and I want to do it for a long while. I’m kind of using (former Sen.) John Warner as my model as somebody who dug in, did it for a long time, accomplished a lot of good, and the fact that he was there for a while enabled him to attain positions that helped him do good things for the country and the commonwealth.”

When asked if he might run for president, he said, “Let’s see, if I serve for 30 years, I’ll be 86… probably not, no.”

The New York Times has a great piece on the U.S. Senate’s slide into gridlock, including how a procedure designed to speed things up called filling the tree led to even more filibusters.

“The increased use of the tactic, which had previously been rare, is part of the procedural warfare that has reached a zenith over the past two years in the Senate. Republicans threaten to filibuster and propose politically charged amendments, Democrats fill the amendment tree, and Republicans filibuster in retaliation.”

“The tactic initially meant to speed bills has instead helped slow them down. The Senate — the legislative body that was designed as the saucer to cool the House’s tempestuous teacup — has become a deep freeze, where even once-routine matters have become hopelessly stuck and a supermajority is needed to pass almost anything.”

The Week: Is it finally time to reform the filibuster?

Aides to two senators on the Senate Banking Committee tell Mother Jones the financial services industry has already moved to block Sen.-elect Elizabeth Warren from joining the committee, which is charged with drafting legislation regulating much of the financial industry.

Wonk Wire has more on the efforts to keep Warren off the committee.

Jeffrey Toobin: “The most important action the Senate takes in January may not involve any legislation at all. Early next year, when the latest group of senators convene for the first time, the ‘world’s greatest deliberative body’ may finally do something worthy of its nickname: reform the filibuster.”

“The filibuster long ago shed its association with the principled stand of dedicated outsiders; Mr. Smith left Washington decades ago. Rather, the opposition parties of the past couple of decades–and especially the Republicans in the Obama era–have transformed the filibuster from a weapon deployed in extraordinary circumstances into a routine part of Senate business. In recent years, it’s become the rule, rather than the exception, that the majority has to muster sixty votes to get anything done. With fifty-three Democrats in the Senate (fifty-five starting next year), this means that Republicans have been able to slow the upper body to a virtual standstill.”

Wonk Wire: The last filibuster?

The Huffington Post has the outlines of a Democratic proposal to weaken the filibuster in the U.S. Senate.

“The critical component, though, is a mechanism that would force senators to physically take the floor and speak in order to maintain opposition to legislation. The effort to end a filibuster is called a cloture motion. Under the proposed rules, if a cloture vote failed to win a simple majority, the bill would be killed and the Senate would move to new business. But if it won a majority — though less than a supermajority of 60 — the bill would remain on the floor for any senator who wished to opine on it. If at some point no senator rose to speak, after given several chances to do so, a new vote would be called — and only a simple majority would be needed to pass it.”