Will the Senate Dems change the rules of the Senate on January 5th? How will it work? What’s likely to happen? You can get a decent primer on all of this from Brian Beutler over at TPMDC.

I think the answer to the first question is ‘yes’ the Democrats will begin a process on January 5th that will result in changes in the Senate rules. But it’s very hard to predict how it will all play out. The first thing the reformers need to do is to demonstrate that they have the support of Vice-President Joe Biden. Then they need to show the Republicans that they have 50 votes in their Caucus to change the rules. Once they accomplish those two things, it’s likely that Mitch McConnell will be willing to cut a deal.

At the end of the process I think we’ll see a fairly modest reform that does not do away with the 60-vote cloture rule. But I think it will make it much more politically painful to obstruct and lead the opposition to choose its battles very carefully. We’ll go from having every bill and every nomination held hostage to a situation where the GOP will let low level nominees get a vote so they can save their bullets for a few big fights.

I think they’ll make it so you have to physically maintain a filibuster and that you have to produce 41 votes for one. They’ll also change the rules so that you can only filibuster a bill once, not at every point in the process from calling the bill up, to ending debate, to having a final vote. It should speed things up a bit.

And if a party really doesn’t want something to happen, like see another Clarence Thomas on the Supreme Court, they still have the power to obstruct with a mere 41 votes. Here is hoping I am right. Some reforms are obviously necessary.