Aside from his 'innate' party loyalty, Harry left the kitchen a mess for his successor(s) to clean up. He retires to his immodest fortune back home in Nevada at the end of the Congress and will only be observing the mess he left for his fellow Democrats. I am certain that he will be the target of 'kind thoughts' from those he left in DC!
What will be as inevitable as the sun rising in the East, is the cries of the Democrats to 'restore' the traditions that they voted to flout 4 years previously. They will plead for 'fairness' and 'equity' just like the parent-killing murderer asking for mercy because he is an orphan!
The rule change that moved from a three-fifths majority to a simple majority for an appointee nomination came on 21 November 2013."Senate Democrats took the dramatic step Thursday of eliminating filibusters for most nominations by presidents, a power play they said was necessary to fix a broken system but one that Republicans said will only rupture it further." ... "The clash ended with a vote nearly as partisan as the times — 52 to 48, with all but three Democrats backing the move and every Republican opposing it."
I have not been able to find the list of Democrat Senators voting FOR, but as I recall, Schumer and his lieutenants were all in that group. Will be lovely to have any one of the GOP Senators ask the clerk to read out how any of the now-protesting Senators voted then. Face - meet mud!
They will squeal like stuck pigs. The speeches from the well about unfairness, they won the popular vote, blah, blah...will be entertaining to watch.
That’s just delicious. Hopefully, Trump will push the Rep Congress to take full advantage of the Reid “gift”.
Not many cabinet or judicial picks have required breaking a filibuster. Even those numbers are clouded, because presidents generally don’t pick a fight over nominees that draw a certain amount of unofficial objections.
Obama was a bit unusual in that he forced votes on nominees that other presidents would have never officially proposed to start with or would have withdrawn after counting senate votes.