The Man of the House

"Czar" Reed knew how to deal with a minority possessed of a tyrannical bent:

Clearly, it is much easier to shut down a windbag in the House than it is in the Senate, where the filibuster still protects the right to effectively unlimited debate. But as the Senate moves closer to some sort of confrontation over filibusters of President Bush's judicial nominees, there's a question hanging in the air worth asking: Why is the filibuster allowed in the Senate but not in the House of Representatives?

The answer is that the filibuster did indeed once have a home in the House. That it doesn't anymore is a tribute to a 19th-century Republican hero: Speaker Thomas Brackett Reed of Maine. If he is recalled at all today, it is because of the memorable nickname his enemies fastened to him in the wake of Reed's successful abolition of the filibuster in the House: "Czar."