Actually, I doubt Arlen's voting patterns will change all that much on major issues (he's still against the Employee Free Choice Act, by the way, which pisses off the Unions who vowed to sink him if he voted against it)... however, the real benefit to having Arlen be a Democrat on paper is that he'll support Democratic procedural maneuvers, such as cloture.
Cloture is a fancy parliamentary term for "shut the fuck up and let's vote already" (I believe it's French*). Basically, with Arlen as Senator #59 and the WTF-get-over-with-it-already-and-seat-the-damned-guy Franken as #60, the Democrats have enough votes to stop ongoing debates in the Senate and force an up-or-down vote on an issue. Even if Arlen votes against the Democrats on the up-or-down votes, he'll face enormous Democratic Party pressure to vote for cloture, because otherwise he'll have his privileges (such as possible chairmanships of the Judiciary or Appropriations committees, earmarks for pet projects in Pennsylvania, and of course, a primo Senate office) revoked. So, I'm not nearly as excited about his changing from a moderate Republican to a moderate Democrat (since that will likely not affect his up-or-down voting), but I am VERY excited about his changing parties from a purely procedural standpoint. And that's not even mentioning how he can help us on Senate committees and lobbying his moderate Republican colleagues to break rank more often.
--Jeff
* No, it's not French. The French for "cloture" is "clôtúre".
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Cloture is a fancy parliamentary term for "shut the fuck up and let's vote already" (I believe it's French*). Basically, with Arlen as Senator #59 and the WTF-get-over-with-it-already-and-seat-the-damned-guy Franken as #60, the Democrats have enough votes to stop ongoing debates in the Senate and force an up-or-down vote on an issue. Even if Arlen votes against the Democrats on the up-or-down votes, he'll face enormous Democratic Party pressure to vote for cloture, because otherwise he'll have his privileges (such as possible chairmanships of the Judiciary or Appropriations committees, earmarks for pet projects in Pennsylvania, and of course, a primo Senate office) revoked. So, I'm not nearly as excited about his changing from a moderate Republican to a moderate Democrat (since that will likely not affect his up-or-down voting), but I am VERY excited about his changing parties from a purely procedural standpoint. And that's not even mentioning how he can help us on Senate committees and lobbying his moderate Republican colleagues to break rank more often.
--Jeff
* No, it's not French. The French for "cloture" is "clôtúre".