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Than how did Puff Daschle wind up Majority leader when Jeffords jumped?

Unlike today, where the split is technically 51-49 (the two indies, Lieberman and Sanders, caucus with the Dems), the 2001 Senate came in split exactly 50-50, with Cheney as the tiebreaker. Which was about as unprecedented as things could get.

Puff threatened to force the Senate into running straight party-line and without unanamous consent (forcing the VP to sit in the chamber every day to cast the tie-breaking vote one everything) unless there was an "agreement" to turn power over if the ratio changed (which is why, to this day, I feel that Jeffords switch was planned before the Senate came into session ... or that the Dems were thinking that Strom was going to kick off mid-session). The GOP caved and agreed to it.

With a clear, if (at 51/49) minimal, majority coming in in 2007, the GOP didn't have a leg to stand on to make that sort of demand. So a mid-session power-switch wasn't put into the 2007 organizing resolution.