We’ll have to see the actual agreement, not just an anonymous leak.
But what is described isn’t caving in on the filibuster.
The Republicans have been filibustering things they would never have done before, simply because Reid has taken up all the amendment slots.
According to the news article, the agreement involves leaving 2 slots for the minority party to propose amendments (note that once you have a slot for an amendment, you can put as many of your individual changes as you want into the amendment). In those instances, apparently some part of the filibuster will be waived, although you will still need 60 votes to get the legislation to the floor, so you can still block things.
My guess is some things we don’t like will pass, that wouldn’t have passed before; on the other hand, the filibuster was never designed to create a 60-vote requirement for all legislation, it was an outgrowth of the infinite debate concept in the senate — that you didn’t vote until everybody had a chance to say something, and that meant a single senator could talk “forever”.
The senators got lazy, so instead of having to talk forever, they made rules to simulate the ‘talk forever’, which actually weakened the ability of an individual senator to stop things, but gave more power to the party apparatus (which is the true shame of the senate, that everything is geared to the two-party system, rather than every senator representing their own state’s interests).
Good post.