Harry Reid won a great victory Thursday by ramming through the nuclear option, but it's a victory he'll pay for for the rest of his career.
Republicans — furious over Reid's nuclear maneuver — have more incentive than ever to find new ways to make trouble. And so, while Reid now has more leverage to move most nominees, he'll find new hurdles when he tries to do just about anything else.
The onslaught started Thursday, when Democrats asked for unanimous consent to move legislation renewing severe restrictions on nonmetal firearms that escape detection from metal detectors. The legislation is largely noncontroversial, and it was initially expected to pass without incident.
But Alabama Republican Jeff Sessions objected to the unanimous-consent arrangement, saying that it was the wrong time to move the bill. Instead, the measure will languish at least until the Senate reconvenes Dec. 9, the same day the ban is set to expire. Also left to languish: a vote on Patricia Millett, the D.C. Circuit Court nominee whose blocked nomination provided the impetus for Reid to go nuclear.
And those two hurdles are just a preview of what's to come, as Republicans' tools to not just delay Reid's objectives, but to block them entirely.
