Earlier today (11/21/2013), Harry Reid and the Democratic majority in the U.S. Senate used their political majority to change longstanding institutional procedure in that legislative chamber. Colloquially, what they did was ‘go nuclear’ – the term used to express how unusual (and radical) their rules change really is. Officially, they reduced the voting requirement to break a filibuster from 60 votes to 51 votes. This now gives Democrats, who currently have a majority of seats in the Senate, but not 60, the ability to confirm the President’s judicial appointments (for all federal judgeships excepting the U.S. Supreme Court) when under the old, long-established and adhered-to rules, they have had to convince at least a few Republicans to support the President’s nominees.
From an economic perspective, what this does is raise enormously the value of being the majority party in the U.S. Senate, because being able to stack the federal courts with radical judges, on either side of the political spectrum, has very far-reaching and long-lasting consequences. One practical implication of this is that we can with confidence predict that there will be a sharp rise in the amount of money spent by Republicans to wrest control of the Senate away from the Democratic Party. A second implication is that when this happens, and it WILL happen at some point, Democrats will scream bloody murder about Republicans screwing them by not permitting filibusters under the old rules. As you might imagine, the Republicans will be less-than-sympathetic. Be careful what you ask (or in this case, vote) for.