The most important vote that the Republican Senate takes next year may be a procedural vote.  If the Senate continues last session’s cloture rule, Senate Democrats will be given the power to keep the Republican agenda off President Obama’s desk. But if senators return to the earlier version of the Senate cloture rule that was in place until the early 1970s, they will be able to put legislation on President Obama’s desk that would be popular with the Republican base in particular and with the majority of the American people as well. The filibuster was created (at Thomas Jefferson’s behest) when the motion to “call the previous question” was struck from Senate rules, leaving no way to force a final vote on legislation.  A cloture rule was added in 1917 that permitted two thirds of senators present and voting to draw debate to a close.  Although in the 1950s senators experimented with requiring two thirds of all senators to support...(Read Full Article)