*** Changing the rules because the rules had already changed: But there was something else that triggered yesterday’s rules change. It used to be that the up-or-down vote was what ultimately mattered. But over the last few years, interest groups and partisan media began holding senators accountable for their cloture votes. It was no longer good enough to simply vote against a nominee on final passage; you also had to vote to deny that nominee the 60 votes needed to even consider the nomination. Just look at the number of cloture votes on presidential nominees (both executive and judicial) by president, according to data from the Congressional Research Service:

Lyndon Johnson: 1
Richard Nixon: 1
Jimmy Carter: 3
Ronald Reagan: 6
George Bush 41: 1
Bill Clinton: 18
George Bush 43: 38
Barack Obama (through five years): 80-plus

Bottom line: This trend wasn’t going to end. As the numbers show, Republicans dabbled in this obstruction with Clinton; Democrats escalated this during the Bush 43 years; and then Republicans took it to ANOTHER level during the Obama presidency. As special interest groups, left and right, have become more sophisticated with their scorecards and their expectations, 60-vote thresholds were going to become impossible. By the way, another reason Reid may have decided now was the time to pull this trigger: If Republicans do take control of the Senate in 2014, it would mean judicial nominations would probably come to a screeching halt in 2015 and 2016, so this is essentially the Democrats’ last year to impact the makeup of the federal courts.