Reply #95: It's not "his" rule. It's been around for awhile.

[joshcryer]

They're not going to get rid of the filibuster entirely because that's the point of the Senate. The problem is that you're assuming that Republican obstructionism would end simply because instead of doing several different votes on several different subjects at the same time (dual track) they'll magically start caring because we're doing one vote at a time. That's just preposterous, and it gives the Republicans far too much credit.

The only thing dual tracking does is minimize the effect of the bullshit virtual filibuster that we have had since the last rule change. If we were one track the whole Senate would be shut down as the filibuster was negotiated, and it the obstructionism would be more pronounced.

Why Reid doesn't eliminate dual tracking, I'm not sure, it would certainly highlight Republican obstructionism. Perhaps he believes that continuing progress is better than a full shut down, particularly as a shutdown while being the majority would look weak. And then people like you would be bashing Reid for allowing any and all progress to shut down as opposed to bashing the Republicans for irrational obstructionism.