Why I think Harry Reid caved
First my disclaimer; I don't agree with his decision even if I am right about his reasoning. I presume that he Biden and Obama have concluded that Senate Republicans are the key to accomplishing much of anything legislatively over the next two years. They are now the de facto brokers with the Republican controlled House that the Administration expects to deal with on a host of issues. The fillibuster deal is less about making the Senate more fully functional than it is about making the House at least partially functional when it really matters.
The focus for negotiations has shifted away from dealing with Speaker Boehner directly on anything. When the Democrats and the Republican House are on a collision path around anything really important the compromise gets worked out with Senate Republicans instead. McConnell delivered the clear majority of Senate Republicans for passage of the fiscal cliff deal. That gave Boehner the political cover he needed to allow the House to vote on and pass that deal in the House meven though he didn't have a majority of his own caucus behind him.
The final Sandy relief Bill was pretty much the same - it went throgh the Senate first then went passed the House with a majority of Republicans opposing it. I am confident that something similiar is envisioned regarding up coming gun violence legislation. It would not surprise me if we find out that fillibuster "reform" unofficially came up during those talks that Joe Biden and Mith McConnell kept having. Negotiations now run through the Senate first on everything and leveraging a degree of bottom line Republican sanity and cooperation there is now built into the ongoing political game plan for getting anything important passed by both houses of Congress.
I recall reading previous reporting that Mitch McConnell promised scortched earth warfare if Democrats unilaterally "imposed" fillibuster reform on the Senate. I think John Boehner also said that the House would not consider any legislation origination in the senate if that happened. My read is that the Majority Leader President and Vice President concluded that although a stronger fillibuster reform package would enable Democrats to pass more legislation in the Senate, it would have the adverse consequence of making it much harder to pass any legislation through the House, hence Reid cut the deal.
I acknowledge that I am only speculating on any White House role in the discussions. I do not believe the Senate Leader would allow the White House to impose any decision on the Senate, but it seems plausible that Biden at least would have been part of the consultative deliberations that Reid no doubt had with other Democrats regarding the fate of the fillibuster in this session of Congress. If I am correct on this the irony of it does not escape me. In a nut shell it would mean that the Democrats have concluded that the man who said it was if top priority to see that Barack Obama was a one term President is now being deferred to as part of a Democratic stratagy to increase the chances that Obama's second term agenda wins a degree of congressional approval.
I oppose the deal that was reached. I see it as a more subtle example of negotiating with kidnappers, in this case those who kidnapped the functionality of the U.S. Senate. Were the tables turned and some day they may be, Republicans would not blink at changing the rules in the Senate toward their own advantage. They once threatened to nuke the fillibuster completely when that threat served their purpose. I believe the stand off in Congress must be faced head on with the American public as witness. The silent filibuster that now remains in place allows Senate Republicans to continue to obstruct under cloak of darkness, and what is needed now is bright daylight, not cloak room deals.
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