The Nuclear Option...

Ever since Obama's election, the Senate Democrats have been threatening to use the “nuclear option” to pass bills they badly want, even though the Republicans have enough seats to filibuster it.  Now it's looking like they're getting ready to actually do it, on the healthcare bill:

A key House committee on Thursday quietly altered its health care legislation in a way that could allow the Senate to mow over Republican opposition to Democratic reforms by exploiting a budgetary loophole.

The Ways and Means Committee adjusted its health care overhaul package so that the Senate, down the road, could avoid a filibuster and pass health care reform with a smaller number of votes than normally required.

The long-discussed process, nicknamed the "nuclear option," is known as reconciliation. It's coming into potential play after the Senate Finance Committee on Tuesday became the last of five committees to approve health care reform legislation, sending the overhaul proposals a big step closer to the president's desk. Before it gets there, though, the bill has to pass from the committees to the floors of the House and Senate.

Under the normal process, senators can filibuster almost anything and the debate would only be cut off if at least 60 lawmakers vote to do so. For that reason, 60 is considered the magic number in the quest to pass health care reform out of the Senate.

But under reconciliation, typically used in the budget process, no filibusters are permitted and a bill can pass with just a simple majority.

So is this a dirty trick, an example of “cheating” on the part of the Democrats?  Not really, though you'll find plenty of people shouting that it is.  In fact, what they're doing is perfectly allowable under the bizarre rules of the Senate.  This kind of gamesmanship is something that Robert Byrd is (justifiably) famous for.  The real reason for all the screaming is that the Democrats are declaring their willingness to violate an informal understanding that has held for decades, but it is not an actual part of the rules.  What they're doing is actually quite democratic: they're allowing a majority vote to win the day.

Whether this is a good idea is an entirely different question than whether it's legal.  Once the Democrats violate this informal understanding, then there's a new informal understanding – and it will be there, inevitably, when the Democrats lose power and the Republicans regain it.  At that time the Democrats may well regret their decision...