Thanks for the links. They contradict what I read about the Senate Rules from a New Republic article back in 2002 and since I’m not any more intimately familiar with the rules of the Senate than you are (my name’s Sean P, not Robert B ) I guess the linked post trumps the unlinked post.

Even assuming your sources are correct, however, Lieberman is still a lot more powerful than you give him credit for. It would seem impossible to have a “gentleman’s filibuster” over a change to the rules for organizing the Senate. If nobody agrees on who the Majority leader is, or the committee chairmen are, then there would basically be a shutdown of the Senate until the issue was resovled. So who would lose more? The House is controlled by the Democrats so they would, in effect be fillibustering all of the Democrat sponsored bills that made its way out of the House.

Tommy: Yeah, that Maine seat is looking pretty vunerable on paper right now (Snowe cruised to re-election, but Collins isn’t an institution like she was). I’d add to that list New Hampshire, Colorado and Minnessotta (barring a Franken nomination). Republican pickup opportunities look very good in South Dakota and Arkansas (if Huckabee can be persuaded to give up his hopeless Presidential campaign), but right now I’d say the only way the Republicans can retake the Senate in ’08 is a candidate at the top of the ticket with strong appeal to socially moderate swing voters in Colorado and New England to help eke out a victory in at least three of their vunerable seats. Hm, I wonder who that candidate could be?

She will vote for the slow bleed, without a doubt.

Since I know nothing about Senate rules, I’m more than willing to defer to you if you know more. Here’s where I was getting my info, for what it’s worth.

Actually, a Lieberman defection WOULD affect committe control. The rule in 2001 you are referring to was an agreement to split all committee assignments evenly to reflect the 50-50 senate split in the wake of the 2000 elections (at the time, Republicans were worried about losing control over the untimely demise of Strom Thurmond and were willing to cut a deal).

Since the rule in effect wasn’t conditioned on power remaining in the Republican hands, they didn’t lose any committee seats. This meant that when Jeffords switched, Republicans replaced Jefford’s seat on certain committees with a non-defecting Republican, while the Democrats were forced, as part of their deal with Jefforts to give up seats on committees Jeffords was already sitting on to take over the majority (!) a result that likely rankled a few Democrats. If Lieberman switched, however, the Republicans would probably gain 2 seats on each committee. So for every committee Lieberman was sitting on, Republicans would get one new member, plus Lieberman, and for every committee Lieberman wasn’t sitting on they’d get 2.

* There is always the filibuster in the Senate, of course, but if I’m not mistaken appropriations bills are exempt from the filibuster protection.