I’m no expert on the arcana of Senate rules — I leave that to Bob Costa — but I must confess to a sneaking admiration for Senator Harry Reid and his possible implementation of the “nuclear option” regarding ending filibusters. You may recall that the battles over President Bush’s appointment of Miguel Estrada to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals and other judicial nominations were frustrated by Democratic filibusters, leading to the creation of the Gang of 14 (featuring our old reach-across-the-aisle buddies, John McCain and Joe Lieberman). The Democrats, then the minority party, whined that their influence would be greatly reduced and begged Bill Frist not to push the button. Under the Gang’s brokered deal, some of the nominations went through and the nuclear option was, temporarily, taken off the table, with the threshold for invoking cloture and thus ending debate remaining at 60 votes. “A truce, not a cease fire,” Senator Orrin Hatch called the deal.

(For younger readers, please click on this link to discover the origin of the term ”Gang of X.” Nice, huh?)

Well, that was then and this is now. The roles are reversed, the Chuck Schumer Democrats are just itching to bring down the hammer, and Reid is making increasingly bellicose noises about eliminating the 60-vote rule in favor of a simple majority, up-or-down vote regarding nominations. Quoth Harry in a radio interview back in April:

All within the sound of my voice, including my Democratic senators and the Republican senators who I serve with, should understand that we as a body have the power on any given day to change the rules with a simple majority, and I will do that if necessary,

And now it’s the GOP’s turn to bleat that this would irrevocably alter the balance of power in the Senate and lead to all sorts of adverse consequences, including human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together, and mass hysteria.

But would it really be so bad? There’s a bracing whiff of fairness about crude majoritarianism and the imposition of a legislative program as a result of victory at the ballot box. As you know, I’m a big fan of George Washington Plunkitt and the old Tammany sachems’ understanding of the use of political power, and it seemed to me at the time and still seems to me now that the Republicans (thanks in part to McCain and the Ladies from Maine) blew a big chance to pound the opposition when they forswore the first use of nukes back in 2005; they could have had the whole loaf, but instead cleverly negotiated against themselves and got half a loaf instead. And if you won’t take it from me, take it from Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa, who yelped back in April:

You know what it reminds me of? It reminds me that we Republicans were stupid in 2005 when we didn’t do the nuclear option when they were complaining that ‘you shouldn’t do that, you should never do it.

No kidding!

Further, the imposition of the nuclear — back in the day, the GOP called it the “constitutional” — option would mean that parties that have become comfortable with losing might actually have to get off their duffs and win an election once in a while. That the fierce urgency of change will be a lot fiercer once the 60-vote marker is gone, and they had better be prepared to see it coming and then defeat it at the ballot box, instead of waiting for it to show up in the Senate cloakroom with a knife and fork in each hand and a napkin tied around its neck. That facing the consequences of your own electoral ineptitude might be bracing.

So bring it on, Harry, and let’s see which party embodies Nietzsche’s Will to Power. There are no Supermen in Congress, but at least we’ll know which side feels comfortable in tights.

UPDATE: They’re still hondeling, and it looks like a “compromise” might be in the works:

“We may have a way forward on this. I feel fairly confident,” Reid said on the floor Tuesday morning, crediting the efforts of Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., to reach a deal to approve seven pending nominations to the National Labor Review Board and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
“John McCain is the reason we’re at the point we are,” Reid said, “No one was able to break through but him.”

Ain’t bipartisanship grand?