Takeaways from the filibuster fight

Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-OR) Okay, before we decide once and for all whether this is a win or a loss, there are a few things I want out on the table. And the first point, appropriately enough, is that whenever you're talking about the Senate, since the answer to any question about it is either "well, yes and no," or, "it depends," the answer to whether this is a win or a loss will be the same. Yes and no. And, it depends.

There's little sense in trying to tell filibuster reform activists that this was a win. We here at Daily Kos were pushing for some specific reforms, aimed at increasing the burden of conducting a filibuster and placing it where it belongs: on the shoulders of those seeking to thwart the will of the majority. To be sure, there were those of us who questioned and still do question why that should be allowed at all, but accepting for the moment the idea that our bicameral legislature can allow for (and indeed, was designed for) experimentation with different processes and procedural rules, we still thought there was no good reason to allow thwarting the will of the majority to be an easy thing to do.

We didn't get those reforms. Conducting a filibuster is still going to be easy.

So it's a loss, right? Well, things did change for the better, and I'll explain how some of those changes might end up being bigger than we think. And, of course, because this is the Senate we're talking about, we'll talk about the down side of getting changes that might be bigger than we think.

But in addition to the small changes inside the Senate, we need to talk about the big changes we created outside. And we'll do that below the fold.