In filibuster vote, "Old Bull" Democrats in Senate take back seat to young bucks But on Thursday, Merkley effectively rolled Levin. On a mostly party-line 52 to 48 vote, Democrats eliminated the 60-vote hurdle to clear a filibuster on most presidential nominations. Merkley became the most prominent anti-filibuster voice, leading a collection of newcomers against the "Old Bulls" of the Democratic caucus who guard their senatorial privilege like a birthright. No bull fought harder against the young bucks than Levin. There's no sign of any personal animosity between the duo, and Merkley's personal online biography boasts of his work with Levin to place limitations on risky financial trades by big banks. But Merkley and Levin have deeply divergent views on the true intentions of the Senate's founders. For the first-term senator, the Republican blockade of President Obama's nominees turned history on its head. The privilege of advising and consenting on a president's nominees, Merkley said, had turned into "block and destroy." "The vote that comes today is the necessary outcome of a series of broken promises," Merkley, who has never served in the minority, told reporters Thursday. And it restores, what we did today restores the traditional understanding of advice and consent. Levin, who wants to ease confirmation rules, rejected the party-line methods that critics have labeled the "nuclear option." It was the first time a major rules change or precedent had been adopted without clearing a two-thirds majority, the standard since 1917 as a guarantee that rules would be altered only in bipartisan fashion. What this is all about is ends and means. Pursuing the nuclear option in this manner removes an important check on majority overreach," Levin said in a floor speech after the vote, paraphrasing the 1949 remarks of the legendary Sen. Arthur Vandenberg. ." . . If a Senate majority decides to pursue its aims unrestrained by the rules, we will have sacrificed a professed, vital principle for the sake of momentary convenience. Levin, who has served almost half his tenure in the minority, fears the logical next step will be to do away with filibusters of Supreme Court nominations and on legislation. Indeed, some Democrats are already girding for that fight. "I think that we should get rid of the filibuster for legislation as well as nominations," said Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), in his first year in the chamber. So for a lot of us this is only halfway to the finish line. Merkley's victory demonstrated just how much the Senate has changed in the past five years. The initial push to rein in filibusters began in late 2009, in the wake of the failed "public option" effort to create a government-sponsored health plan to compete with private insurers as part of what became the 2010 Affordable Care Act. Even though there were 60 members of the Democratic caucus at the time, a handful of centrist Democrats opposed the public option, leaving it short of the filibuster hurdle.