Every two years, when the Senate’s newly-elected members take office, the Constitution opens up a brief window when the Senate’s rules can be changed with just 51 votes — the rules typically require a two-thirds majority to make any changes. Last year, several senators proposed taking advantage of this window to reform the filibuster rule and prevent Senate Republicans from continuing their unprecedented campaign of obstruction of bills and nominees. Ultimately, however, these reforms failed because too many Senate Democrats were unwilling to move forward with them.

Yesterday, in a floor speech, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) admitted that the reformers were correct, and that the senators who kept the filibuster intact were wrong:

If there ever were a time when Tom Udall and Jeff Merkley were prophetic, it’s tonight. These two young, fine senators said it was time we changed the rules in the Senate, and we didn’t. They were right. The rest of us were wrong — or most of us now anyway. What a shame. So here we are, wasting time because of the Republicans. … And then, to top it off, one of the finest members of the Senate we’ve had, ever, was defeated yesterday by a man, listen to this, Mr. President, who campaigned on the platform that there’s too much compromise in the Senate. And he’s going to come back here and not compromise with anybody on anything. Now that’s what we need in the Senate, more people who are willing to do nothing but fight.

Watch it:

Reid’s frustration with the result in the Indiana GOP Senate primary closely maps concerns that ThinkProgress raised shortly after Tea Party candidate Richard Mourdock defeated long time incumbent Sen. Richard Lugar (R-IN). In the wake of Mourdock’s success running on a platform of uncompromising obstructionism, it is unlikely that any Republican senator will be willing to cross party lines in order to pass even the most essential legislation or to fill crucial jobs such as a seat on the Supreme Court. As Reid now seems to recognize, the choice facing Senate Democrats is whether to dramatically reform the Senate rules or leave America completely unable to govern itself.

Despite their unwillingness to do so last year, however, they will have another opportunity to do so very soon — provided they have at least 51 votes in favor of reform. Next January, when the 113th Congress convenes, another window opens enabling the Senate’s rules to be changed by a simple majority vote.

Earlier this month, Sen. Dean Heller (R-NV) announced that he would unilaterally veto Judge Elissa Cadish’s nomination to a federal judgeship in Nevada because she once refused to misrepresent the law in a way that favored the NRA. Heller believes he can carry the gun lobby’s water in this way because of an odd Senate tradition called “blue slips,” which currently allows either one of a judicial nominee’s home state senators to prevent that nominee from receiving a hearing in the Judiciary Committee.

This tradition, however, does not exactly have a longstanding pedigree. During the Reagan and the first Bush Administration, the blue slip tradition did indeed allow home state senators to block a judicial nominee, but only if both of these senators agreed. Indeed, this rule remained in effect until 1995, when Senate Republicans unilaterally changed it to make it easier to block President Clinton’s nominees with only one objecting senator — only to change back to Reagan Era rules once George W. Bush took office.

Heller now seems to think that, because a Democratic president is back in office, he should have the same power to unilaterally veto nominees that didn’t exist under Ronald Reagan or most of George W. Bush’s term. Fortunately, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) apparently thinks otherwise:

Reid, the Senate majority leader, said he plans to ask Leahy to bypass the blue slip process in this case and move forward with the Cadish nomination. He said the two could meet Thursday.

Reid said his staff has compiled clippings and other material on Cadish that he plans to show to Leahy.

“Leahy is a traditionalist around here,” Reid said. “I’ve gotten all the articles about this together and am going to visit with Pat and go over it, but I don’t think he will do it.“

There’s nothing wrong with being a traditionalist, but there’s also no real tradition giving Heller a unilateral veto over nominees. If one set of rules were good enough for Ronald Reagan, than they should be good enough for Barack Obama.

The Hill reports that, in return for a promise that President Obama will not make any recess appointments in the upcoming Senate break, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) agreed to stop obstructing several of the president’s nominees:

“As the result of a successful discussion among the minority leader, the White House and myself there will be no recess appointments during the coming adjournment,” said [Majority Leader Harry] Reid, speaking from the Senate floor.

In return, Republicans allowed passage by unanimous consent of several of President Obama’s noncontroversial nominees and allowed Reid to set up a vote on the confirmation of Stephanie Thacker to be a circuit judge for the Fourth Circuit for April 16, the day the Senate returns from its break.

It is, of course, unfortunate that Reid needs to strike a deal at all before the caucus that controls less than half the seats in the Senate will deign to allow completely noncontroversial nominees to move forward. Nevertheless, this incident proves the wisdom of Obama’s decision to make several recess appointments earlier this year despite McConnell’s objections. Prior to Obama’s actions, he and Reid had few bargaining chips they could use to prevent McConnell’s obstructionism in a Senate ruled by the filibuster. Now, Obama and Reid can use the threat of future recess appointments to ensure that the party that voters did not want to control the Senate does not have a total veto power over the president’s nominees.

As ThinkProgress previously reported, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) filed seventeen petitions to break Senate Republican filibusters on as many judges earlier this week. Initially, McConnell reacted to these petitions with an increasingly implausible list of reasons why the Senate could not vote on these nominees right away, before finally admitting that he was opposing the nominees because Reid made Senate Republicans “look bad” by pointing out their obstructionism.

As it turns out, this was not an effective messaging strategy for Mr. McConnell, who has now agreed to allow most of the seventeen judges to move forward:

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) announced the agreement on the floor but said they wouldn’t provide any details until they briefed their respective caucuses later in the afternoon. However, aides said the deal will allow Democrats to move 12 district court judges and 2 circuit court judges by May 7.

Now, let’s be clear, this is not a perfect deal. There is absolutely no reason whatsoever why every judge who has cleared the Senate Judiciary Committee could not be confirmed today — and there is certainly no reason why judges who received little if any opposition in committee need to wait as long as May 7. It’s also inexcusable that one of President Obama’s most outstanding nominees, Ninth Circuit nominee Paul Watford, is not on the list of judges being confirmed (a list of the judges is below the jump).

Nevertheless, today’s deal is a massive improvement over the status quo. According to data provided by the Federal Judicial Center, the 112th Congress has confirmed judges at a rate of about 4.75 judges per month. Today’s deal, by contrast, means that fourteen new judges will be confirmed in just two months. This is a significant uptick — even if it is barely enough to make a dent in the 83 currently existing judicial vacancies — and Reid deserves credit for making this happen.

Indeed, there is an important lesson here for Reid and for progressive lawmakers in general. McConnell remains the most obstructionist Senate Leader in recent history, and he has been a constant barrier to ensuring our nation functions effectively from the moment President Obama took office. Nevertheless, we know now that he can be forced to back down. Harry Reid decided to fight this week, and he was rewarded for it. He should remember that fact the next time McConnell stands in the way.
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In an exchange that seems designed to prove why fewer Americans approve of Congress than approve of communism or the BP oil spill, Senate Leaders Harry Reid (D-NV) and Mitch McConnell (R-KY) engaged in a long debate this morning over why Reid is currently trying to break seventeen filibusters of President Obama’s judicial nominees. The exchange culminated with McConnell admitting that, even though all these judges will be confirmed eventually, he is blocking them now because he is upset that Reid’s making him look bad:

REID: I’ve got a great idea. My friend the Republican Leader said these judges are all going to get approved anyway, so I’ve got an idea. Let’s go to this IPO bill immediately after finishing the highway bill, with the agreement that we’ll dispose of these judges immediately after that. . . .

McCONNELL: It is highly unlikely any of these district judges are not going to be confirmed. We’ve done a number of them this year. We’ve done seven this year. District judges are almost never defeated. This is just a very transparent attempt to try to slam dunk the minority and make them look like they are obstructing things they aren’t obstructing. We object to that. We don’t think that meets the standard of civility that should be expected in the Senate. And, so, any effort to make the minority look bad or attempt to slam dunk them that is sort of manufactured as this is is gonna, of course, be greeted with resistance.

Watch it:

Let’s explain what’s going on here. Both Reid and McConnell agree that there is nothing objectionable about these judges — in McConnell’s words, “it is highly unlikely any of these district judges are not going to be confirmed.” Additionally, both men agree that the Senate should vote on the “IPO bill” that Reid refers to, a bill dealing with investments in small businesses that recently passed the House. Initially, Reid wanted to vote on the seventeen judges awaiting confirmation before moving on to the IPO bill, but he even concedes this point — saying that he is willing to “go to this IPO bill” first as McConnell prefers.

And then McConnell says this deal is unacceptable because Reid “ma[de] the minority look bad.”

If this is truly McConnell’s reason for blocking these judges, then he just made an absolutely shocking admission. Thanks to excessive judicial vacancies, America’s courts are increasingly unable to function. In some courts, judges are so overburdened they have to rush major felony cases through as if they involved minor traffic violations. In one court, felony caseloads nearly doubled in just two years. Every court that is unable to handle its caseload means wrongly fired workers waiting months or years for justice and businesses that must delay making new hires until they are sure they won’t be hit with an unwarranted legal judgment. And yet McConnell says he is willing to punish all of these workers and businesses because he is upset that Reid has made him look bad. America can ill afford this kind of tantrum.

Last Friday, after Senate Republicans refused to allow the Senate to move forward with a vote on 90 pending nominees to federal positions, an exasperated Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) took to the Senate floor to suggest that drastic action might be necessary to meet this obstructionist force with equal force:

I think that the president did the minimal with his recess appointments — the minimal. I think he’s waited far too long. If something doesn’t break here, I’m going to recommend to the president he recess appoint all these people — every one of them.

Watch it:

Reid’s statement is the second time in two months that he’s indicated the highly unproductive status quo is not acceptable. Last month, when President Obama endorsed significant filibuster reform to ensure that all nominees receive an up or down vote in the Senate, Reid largely endorsed the proposal. His statement on Friday is another hopeful sign that Reid’s caucus might be prepared to take real action to ensure that the Senate minority can no longer threaten our government’s ability to function.

For obstructionist Senate Republicans, however, there is a certain irony behind Reid’s latest statement. The most obstructionist members of the Senate, such as Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT), claim their opposition to the president’s nominees is justified to preserve the Senate’s role as a gatekeeper over people appointed to key government jobs — and, when done in good faith, such a gatekeeper role is genuinely important. Presidential appointees wield tremendous power, and, in a perfect world, should not be given that kind of power without some kind of evaluation of their fitness to hold it.

At the same time, however, the worst of all possible worlds is one where government cannot function at all due to blanket obstruction of the president’s nominees.

If obstructionists like Lee force the president to use blanket recess appointments in order to simply keep our nation functioning, the irony is that they will achieve the opposite of what they set out to accomplish. The Senate should conduct good faith reviews of each nominee and vote down the ones they deem unacceptable, but if an obstructionist minority is unwilling to operate in good faith than the president has no choice but to make sure that American government can function properly without them.