Cross-posted from Congress Matters.
First he wins his first cloture test of the new Congress, then he hits one out of the park on the organizing resolution!
Yes, credit where credit is due, everyone. Harry Reid appears to have won the organizing resolution stand-off.
Remember when it looked like the Republicans might filibuster the organizing resolution, thereby preventing new Senate committee assignments from being made? The issue then was that a 59-41 Senate, which is for all intents and purposes what it looks like we'll end up with once Norm Coleman is scraped off, would appear to argue for partisan ratios on the committees that result in a +3 net Democratic advantage in most cases. But Republicans were threatening to use their 41 votes to filibuster that resolution unless Democrats agreed to cap their advantage at +2.
Well, that just didn't make sense, because without a new organizing resolution, the old one remains effective, and with all the Republican losses and retirements:
at least until the resignation of Senators who are expected to move into the Obama administration, the Democrats stand to lose very little in terms of raw committee power if the Republicans actually do try to block the new organizing resolutions, and in fact gain considerable power in many key areas, especially in the early going when the focus will be on the stimulus package.
That meant the longer the Republicans delayed the organizing resolution, the longer they had to live with a situation like a +5 Democratic advantage on the Appropriations Committee.
Nor did their gripe that the Dem. advantage should be uniform across all committees make any real historical sense, given that uniform spreads where the partisan advantage in the full Senate was more than just a few seats have only recently been the norm, but weren't always.
So guess what? It's over, that's what. According to CQ ($):
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell have reached a tentative agreement that would give Democrats a three-seat advantage on most committees during the 111th Congress.
[...]
Michigan Sen. Debbie Stabenow, head of the Democratic Steering and Outreach Committee, said Democrats negotiated a larger, four-seat advantage on the Appropriations and Armed Services committees. By statute, Democrats will have only a one-seat edge on the Intelligence Committee and a two-seat advantage on the Joint Economic Committee. On all other committees — except the Ethics panel, which always includes three members of each party — there will be three more Democrats than Republicans, Stabenow said.
Atta way, guys! Boy, am I glad to be able to cheer for this one!