Harry Reid allowed this to happen.

[Proud Liberal Dem]

80. I suppose you have a point

and I guess if you thought that putting something up for a vote knowing that it will fail would produce sufficient backlash for its later success it would be a good idea (like say, the gun bill that was procedurally defeated yesterday). However, filibuster reform is not something that most people are all that "plugged into" and why waste the time on a vote that is going nowhere (not saying I necessarily agree with the mindset but just saying what might have been going through their heads)? I do agree with you in principle that we should be putting more things up for votes and letting the chips fall where they may but I suspect that members of Congress aren't much interested in voting on things that they know aren't going to pass. I'm sure that, aside from embarrassing the President and Democrats, one of the chief reasons that the Republicans are busy filibustering stuff is that they know that they're going to be on the wrong side of public opinion on many up-or-down votes, so they make sure that they don't happen in the first place. I'm sure that they also take considerable pleasure in watching us chew out President Obama and the Democrats in the Senate instead of attacking them and their rampant obstructionism. I'm sure that they also don't want the House to feel any heat from the Senate to have to take action on anything the Senate passes since Boehner has adopted a "Let's wait and see what the Senate does" attitude towards taking up highly charged issues.