Roll Call ($) (I'm adopting the "$" over the "subscription" notation, after seeing it at Open Congress -- gets to the real point much quicker and more directly, unlike this note):

With two potential Democratic Senate seats in limbo, Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) are finding it difficult to resolve a key issue for the 111th Congress — the makeup and size of the chamber’s committees.

"We haven’t worked that out yet. Republicans haven’t been very cooperative," Reid complained Wednesday.

In the discussion following each of the mentions I've made of the possibility of the Republicans blocking organizing resolutions, I've encountered some resistance in the comments that such a filibuster wouldn't happen because, well, because it just wasn't done.

But here we are with the new Congress having convened, gotten through its first week of work, and there's no organizing resolution. Why not? Because there's no agreement. And what kind of agreement does there have be? There has to be agreement to bring the resolution to the floor, which either has to be done by unanimous consent or by passing a motion to proceed. And in order to pass a motion to proceed, they need to be able to overcome a filibuster of a motion to proceed.

Keeping in mind that it only takes a simple majority to adopt an organizing resolution, what would be the reason that the Senate doesn't routinely adopt an organizing resolution on day one of a new Congress?

Yes. Exactly.

You don't actually have to filibuster something -- be it regular legislation or an organizing resolution -- in order to filibuster it these days.

So yeah, the very fact that there's no organizing resolution yet means that Harry Reid considers the threat of a filibuster to be a credible one. But what's at issue?

Democrats complain that Republicans are insisting on using the current 57-41 party breakdown as a starting point for negotiations — a scenario that makes it harder for Democrats to argue for a larger majority on committees.

"They’re trying to negotiate this off of 57 when it’s obvious it’s going to end up at least at 58, and probably 59," one Senate Democratic leadership aide said.

And what do Republicans say?

But Republicans said Democrats are asking for too much.

"The Democrats’ initial suggestion far overplayed their hand," one Senate GOP leadership aide said. "And probably when we come back with a counter, they’ll think that’s far from reality, but this is a negotiation."

Though details were sketchy, it appears that Democrats are seeking to have larger majorities on some committees than others. The GOP aide said Democrats had requested at least a three-seat majority on the Senate Finance panel, for example. For other committees, the Democratic advantage could be as low as two seats. Currently, Democrats have a one-seat edge.

Maybe the article is just awkwardly constructed, but does anybody know what the problem is with wanting to have larger majorities on some committees than others? I knew the Republicans were trying to leverage their 41 seats (and resulting ability to mount a filibuster if they hold all their votes) to force the concession of capping the Democratic advantage on the committees to two seats rather than the three that a 59-41 Senate would otherwise argue for. But what's the problem with having some committees have bigger majorities than others? That's not unusual in the least, as far as I can tell.

The 96th Congress was comprised pretty much exactly like the 111th: 58 Democrats plus an Independent in the majority, and 41 Republicans in the minority. So how did the committees break down?

Committee	Dems.*	Reps.	Dem. adv.
Agriculture	10	8	+2
Appropriations	17	11	+6
Armed Services	10	7	+3
Banking	9	6	+3
Budget	12	8	+4
Commerce	10	7	+3
Energy	11	7	+4
Environment	8	6	+2
Finance	12	8	+4
Foreign Relations	9	6	+3
Governmental Affairs	9	8	+1
Judiciary	10	7	+3
Labor	9	6	+3
Rules	6	4	+2
Veterans' Affairs	6	4	+2
Select Ethics	3	3	0
Select Indian Affairs	3	2	+1
Select Intelligence	7	6	+1
Select Sm. Business	10	7	+3

Source: Senate Committee Party Ratios: 94th - 110th Congresses. CRS Order Code RL3475

^*: Sen. Harry F. Byrd, Jr., an Independent, caucused with majority.

I mean, that pretty much flies in the face of the Republican objections in the 111th, doesn't it? With the exception of the ethics committee, which is supposed to be evenly divided, the 59 Senators caucusing with the majority enjoyed committee seating advantages ranging from +1 to +6. That's pretty clear evidence that recent Senates similarly situated had widely varying advantages in the committees. And here are today's Republicans not only whining about the audacity of Democrats seeking to do exactly what they did last time the numbers were the same as they are today, but crying that Dems ought to be limited to an advantage no greater than +2, even as they enjoyed a margin three times larger than that on the Appropriations committee in the 96th.

Committee ratios in the 110th Congress were pretty much locked into place by the fact that Democrats had the narrowest possible majority. They were therefore entitled to no more than the narrowest possible majorities on the committees. No surprise, then, that every committee (save ethics) had a +1 Dem. advantage. The 109th Congress saw a 55-44 Republican Senate, and a +2 Republican advantage in the committees across the board, with the exception of ethics, of course, but also a +1 advantage on the Intelligence panel. The 108th was 51-49 with a Republican majority, and as you would expect, it was the reverse of the 110th, with +1 across the board, only with a +3 advantage on Energy and Natural Resources. And the 107th, after Jeffords' defection, was 51-49 Dem, and therefore +1 across the board. So that's perhaps some argument for keeping the ratios the same across the board.

In fact, the advantages for the majority did stay pretty much uniform across the board all the way back to the 104th Congress, when the 53-47, Republican-controlled body split between a +2 advantage on 11 committees, and +1 on 7 others. All the other Congresses listed in this report, that is, the 94th through the 104th, all varied the advantages that the majorities enjoyed on the different committees. A steady, across the board advantage appears to be only the most recent practice, though it should be noted that the party advantages in the Senate as a whole have not been as big for either party as they are right now for thirty years. And it's not like the last Congress with a mix of majority committee advantages was ancient history, either. It was just 12 years ago.

Apparently, though, there just aren't a whole lot of Senators who remember that being the case. Or at least they don't appear to be saying anything about it. Of those serving in the 96th Congress, only David Pryor (D-AR), Daniel Inouye (D-HI), Richard Lugar (R-IN), Ted Kennedy (D-MA), Carl Levin (D-MI), Thad Cochran (R-MS), Max Baucus (D-MT), Orrin Hatch (R-UT), Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and Robert Byrd (D-WV) remain. And it might be worth considering that Pryor, Levin, Cochran and Baucus were freshman Senators that year (although Cochran and Baucus had both technically been appointed to fill vacancies during the prior Congress, but were unable to be sworn in since Congress was at the time out of session, it already being December 1978). Still, there were fully 40 Senators who were around for the last Congress with uneven committee advantages, the 104th, so it's not like they should all have forgotten that that's possible. Both McConnell and Reid had been in the Senate for some time by then, 10 years for McConnell, and 8 for Reid.

Man, I hope this isn't another situation in which Reid's consulting only with his "tight, little circle with Durbin and [Sen. Charles] Schumer and [Sen. Patty] Murray." Murray was a freshman last time there was any serious spread in the committee advantages and thus may have had little idea of what went into the arrangements. Only Reid had any significant experience with such situations. I hope he remembers it clearly.