[Springfield Reformer]

This was, I believe, for two purposes. 1) to lower the bar for building the bill, as all amendments now can pass on simple (democrat) majorities. 2) this was also intended to set up the battlefield for 2014, get as much bad př for republicans as possible by pitting them as the evil meanies againstvthe children. I also wonder if the newtown parent filibuster of the filibuster may have looked like such a pr nightmare they decided against it. The dems are counting heavily on the propaganda value of the debates to make it very difficult to reject the final bill, which still requires 60 votes, as I recall. So its not by any means over, but it gets messier from here, even if we win.

[TexasRedeye]

...the final bill, which still requires 60 votes...

Final passage of the bill only requires a majority of votes - 51 if all are present and voting.