How we broke the Senate without breaking any rules

Ezra Klein wrote an interesting piece in The Washington Post highlighting the Senate's tendency to "run on norms rather than rules."

He cites Gregory Koger's new book "Filibustering," which explains "how and why obstruction has been institutionalized in the U.S. Senate over the last fifty years, and how this transformation affects politics and policymaking."

Klein explains, "We’ve broken so many norms in recent years that the Senate of today bears little resemblance to the Senate of 1983, much less the Senate of 1953. But because there was never a formal fight over a rule change, and because the changes came gradually, we didn’t notice. Now it’s too late. The norms that once protected the Senate are largely gone. And we haven’t erected new rules in their place."