Bill Hennessey e-mails to note the following from the House of Representatives’ web page: Senate Floor Procedures — Recent Developments in the Senate

At the convening of almost every Congress from 1961 until 1975, attempts were made to reduce the vote required to invoke cloture to three-fifths of Senators present and voting. On most of these occasions, opponents mounted a filibuster against a motion to proceed to consider a measure to change the rule. Supporters attempted to overcome these filibusters by asking the chair to rule that the Senate’s constitutional power to make its rules required it to be able to reach such questions by majority vote. Although they sometimes obtained favorable rulings, they were never able to achieve a change by using this argument.

During this time, several compromise proposals were developed, including: (1) applying the reduced requirement only to appropriation bills and conference reports; (2) reducing the majority required on each successive cloture vote; (3) requiring the needed majority to include a majority of each party; and (4) substituting a requirement of three-fifths of the full Senate (60 votes).

In 1975, this last proposal, originated by then Majority Whip Robert C. Byrd, was adopted for most measures, but the two-thirds requirement was retained to limit debate on measures changing the Senate’s standing rules. In addition, since 1959 motions to proceed to consider rules changes have been debatable even if offered during the “morning hour'’ when other legislative proposals can be brought up without a debatable motion. These provisions are intended to protect Senators against rules changes that might further restrict their prerogatives.

The man has cajones, I’ll give him that. Still, he is an hypocrtical as the day is long.