Private: The Law Review Article that Might Spark a Nuclear War

Little attention was paid when former Republican Senate aide Martin Gold, a lawyer and lobbyist at Covington & Burling and an authority on Senate procedures, published an article in the Federalist Society-affiliated Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy entitled: THE CONSTITUTIONAL OPTION TO CHANGE SENATE RULES AND PROCEDURES: A MAJORITARIAN MEANS TO OVERCOME THE FILIBUSTER. (shouting in original). Today the article (which Gold co-authored with Dimple Gupta, now an aide to Senator Arlen Spector, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee), is at the center of the debate over filibusters of judges and the "nuclear option."
An article in today's New York Times reports that Gold began his training in the Senate's arcane parliamentary procedures as a newly hired Senate aide in the 1980s when his boss, Minority Leader Howard Baker (R-TN) told him: "Watch Byrd," a reference to then-Senate Majority Leader Robert Byrd (D-WV), who is widely considered to be a master of the Senate's procedures. Gold learned well, and went on to write Senate Procedure and Practice.
Those on the other side of the nuclear option debate are skeptical of Gold's work on the topic:

"I think he's sold these guys a bill of goods," said one of Mr. Gold's Democratic adversaries, Kevin Kayes, a former assistant parliamentarian of the Senate who is now chief counsel to the Democratic leader, Senator Harry Reid of Nevada. "Marty's name on that document somehow gives this credibility because people around here respected him. But I'm not sure that's the case after what's gone on here."

Mr. Gold, who left his lobbying practice to work for Dr. Frist in 2003 but is now back at his job for the law firm Covington & Burling, defends himself. " 'Manipulator' is a terrible word," he said. "I've been asked to serve and have sought to lend whatever talent I could to help people that I respect."

People for the American Way has published a highly critical analysis of the Gold/Gupta article, arguing that:

-The Gold/Gupta article directly rebuts assertions by GOP leaders that recent Democratic filibusters of judicial nominees are unprecedented.

-Over half of the Gold/Gupta article examines previous efforts to do away with the longstanding practice that the Senate's rules continue from one Congress to the next. (Some nuclear option proponents have argued that a simple majority could rewrite new rules at the beginning of the Senate, even though explicit written rules say that they do continue, and require a two-thirds majority to end debate on rule changes.) The attached analysis notes that Gold and Gupta are ultimately forced to admit that the Senate has squarely rejected this claim every single time it came to a vote.
-None of the supposed "precedents" cited by nuclear option proponents for changing the rules by parliamentary ruling supports the effort to reinterpret the Senate's written rules to mean the opposite of their explicit text. The incidents that Gold and Gupta try to stretch into precedents for the nuclear option are not remotely comparable to the radical step of eliminating the filibuster; they were more in the nature of closing loopholes in existing rules or practices allowing senators to delay the work of the Senate.

Yesterday Senator Byrd delivered a speech setting out his views on the legitimacy of the filibuster.