By Dylan Matthews
Marc Ambinder asks:
If John McCain selects Joe Lieberman as his vice presidential ticket-mate, does Harry Reid kick Lieberman ought of the Senate Democratic conference, thus, potentially, transferring power to Republicans for a few months?
No. Lieberman can't pull a Jeffords; in 2001, Democrats coaxed Republicans members of the Senate into passing an organizing resolution that allowed for control of the body to shift when Senators switched caucuses, as happened with Jeffords. There's no such clause in the current organizing resolution, and while Lieberman and the Republicans could get 51 votes between them and Cheney in favor of a new organizing resolution, Reid could easily filibuster it and retain control. So essentially, there's no way short of a 10 member swing toward the Republicans that control over the Senate will shift before January 2009.
