Former Bush speechwriter David Frum pens an excellent column on how politics has changed from the 1950's to the 1980's to today:
"Under the old rules, there were certain things that political parties did not do -- even though theoretically they could. If one party controlled the Senate and another party controlled the presidency, the Senate party did not reject all the president's nominees. The party that controlled the House did not refuse to schedule votes on the president's budgets. Individual senators did not use secret holds to sway national policy. The filibuster was reserved for rare circumstances -- not as a routine 60-vote requirement on every Senate vote.
It's incredible to look back now on how the Reagan tax cut passed the Democratic House in 1981. The Democratic House leaderships could have refused to schedule votes on Reagan's tax plans. Instead, they not only allowed the tax plan to proceed -- but they allowed 48 of 243 Democrats to break ranks on the key procedural vote without negative consequences to their careers in the Democratic party. (Rep. Dan Glickman of Kansas, for example, who voted for the tax cuts would rise to become Secretary of Agriculture under President Clinton.)
Hard to imagine Speaker John Boehner allowing his Republicans to get away with similar behavior on a measure proposed by President Obama."
Although I personally think he conveniently avoids the issue of how usage of the filibuster has became so prominent (Republican senators after the 2006 Democratic takeover of both Houses of Congress), the column is an excellent read on how our politics got to where it is today.
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