Daily Kos Elections Morning Digest: Wayward Democrats engineer another Senate coup'in Washington

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' WA-St. Sen: Putting Republicans in power even though Democrats have the majority: It's not just for New Yorkers anymore! As has been previously threatened, the two renegade Democrats in the Washington state Senate (where Democrats are in control 26-23) just sorta-defected to the other side. They didn't throw the Senate to Republican control entirely but rather created a centrist power-sharing arrangement that I doubt is going to leave anyone very happy except for maybe newspaper editorial boards. Democrat Rodney Tom, the ringleader of the enterprise (who was a Republican as a state representative, until he ran for the Senate as a Dem in 2006) will take over as majority leader from Ed Murray, and co-conspirator Tim Sheldon will become president pro tem.

Republicans and Democrats will each chair one-half of the chamber's committees, including some that will be co-chaired'although it's worth noting that some of the most moderate first-term GOPers, Andy Hill and Steve Litzow, will head two of the most important committees, leapfrogging over much-more-senior conservative members. One other consequence that shouldn't be overlooked: Seeing as how every vote needs to count in order to make the coup work, the Republicans were also forced to accept loose-cannonish (emotionally more so than ideologically) Pam Roach'whom they kicked out of the caucus'back into the fold.

As for the question of "why" behind the Washington Senate coup, for Tom it's a mix of power-questing and goo-goo centrist douchiness, while for Sheldon it's a matter of just being temperamentally conservative and representing a red district. The analogy would be if Joe Lieberman and Ben Nelson (respectively) had been given the opportunity to do the same thing in a 51-49 U.S. Senate.

And as for what progressives might actually do about it, Washington has one of the highest bars to recall in the nation (signatures equal to 35 percent of the votes cast in the last election are required), so recall is highly unusual. Tom and Sheldon, though, are both up in 2014. Tom is in a Dem-leaning suburban district in Bellevue and has certainly has made himself vulnerable to a primary challenge, though the mechanics of the top-two primary increase his odds of survival so long as he gets past the first round (as he'd probably win either a Dem/Tom or Tom/GOP matchup). Sheldon is a tougher nut to crack: He's personally popular in his rural, GOP-leaning district and has survived primary challenges from the left before. (David Jarman)