CHANGE IN SENATE FILIBUSTER RULES

Nearly half of all filibusters have come during President Obama's 4 years and 10 months of office.   In the history of the U.S., 168 nominees have been filibustered - with 82 occurring during the Obama administration. In the history of the U.S., 23 district court nominees have been filibustered - with 20 being Obama nominees.*  So yesterday, Democrats changed the rules on filibusters to allow a simple majority for executive and judicial appointments (except for Supreme Court appointments).*  I'm surprised this was not done before now.

You may recall that Republicans threatened the nuclear option back in 2005 of the George W. Bush administration.  Democrats finally caved, however, and agreed not to filibuster judicial candidates except in extreme cases.**

Mother Jones has published some interesting graphs on filibusters by president, one of which is presented here(each bar is two years).  See the article for discussion and the other two figures.***

Though Republicans are objecting strongly to the action in public, I suspect they are cheering in private because now they can claim they didn't break the filibuster when they take over the Senate.  Of course they think they will do this in 2014, but they have been wrong about this before.  They expected to take over the Senate in 2012, but the Democrats actually gained two seats.  I wouldn't be surprised if Republicans actually expand the list of items now subject to filibusters.

Note added November 24, 2013: You also might want to look at an article on achievements of the new rule: http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=112427639902898514#editor/target=post;postID=2881200110682681265;onPublishedMenu=allposts;onClosedMenu=allposts;postNum=1;src=link

*http://mediamatters.org/blog/2013/11/21/rich-lowry-is-mad-that-democrats-took-his-filib/197010; http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/senates-filibuster-rule-change-will-help-obama-achieve-key-second-term-priorities/2013/11/21/ccf43c4c-52dd-11e3-9fe0-fd2ca728e67c_story.html; http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2013/11/21/do-obama-nominees-face-stiffer-senate-opposition/
** http://www.forbes.com/sites/rickungar/2013/11/21/gop-gambles-big-on-harry-reids-nuclear-option-why-not-just-explode-the-filibuster-for-good/
*** http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2013/11/charts-explain-why-democrats-went-nuclear-filibuster