Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) did not employ the nuclear option or go nuclear, as many headlines and stories suggested. He did not use an unprecedented ploy to challenge the filibuster or in any real way change Senate rules by majority vote. What Reid employed was closer to a firecracker than a nuke.

Thomas Reed was an important, if often forgotten, speaker of the House.

If Senate Democrats really want to get things done, they should imitate the old-school method of long hours and true filibustering.

The frivolous use of the filibuster could be stopped by making it the minority's responsibility to keep the filibuster going or by returning to the old model in which a filibuster means that the Senate has to stop everything and debate around the clock.

When majorities are close, party unity becomes the key to partisan success or failure.

The 39-hour sort-of filibuster in the Senate last week was sort of interesting, though not as an example of the Senate tradition of unlimited debate, nor as an example of the Senate tradition as a great deliberative body, nor even as an example of the serious questions surrounding how both...

Bipartisan oversight in the new Congress should develop a sensible policy toward Latin America that addresses Mexico's antidrug campaign, Hugo Chávez's hostile regime, free trade with Colombia, and relations with Brazil and Cuba.

Congress returns to a full agenda, a swirling political climate, a set of huge trials abroad, a budget mess at home, and an intensifying presidential campaign.