Vice President Joe Biden swears in former Newark Mayor Cory Booker to the United States Senate shortly after 12 PM ET on Thursday:
Booker's introduction to the lunacy of Senate procedure was swift: Immediately after being sworn in, the Senate turned to a cloture vote aimed at defeating the
GOP's filibuster of Rep. Mel Watt (D-NC) to head the Federal Housing Finance Agency. Even though 56 senators voted to confirm Watt, Republicans were able to block his nomination because it takes 60 votes to break a filibuster.
With Booker in the Senate, there are once again 55 Democrats and 45 Republicans, but the filibuster means that despite having a 10 seat majority, Democrats can't actually run the senate—unless they do the right thing and pursue the nuclear option to get rid of the filibuster altogether. If Booker supports such an effort, it will be his biggest act of heroism yet.