The Republicans used a new stall tactic last week, one that is used infrequently in the history of the Senate. It was an attempt to make cloture meaningless — to say that the road to passage must include a vote-a-rama of unrelated, purely political votes.

This is the practice we voted to change. The precedent we set merely returns the Senate to the regular order and only affects the ability of the minority to obstruct and delay after more than 60 senators have voted to end discussion.

Now, 60 votes to end debate will mean debate actually ends, as the rules of the Senate intended. We restored the balance between individual rights and comity in the rules of the Senate. But this change goes only so far. For the good of our economy and our country, I hope Republicans will work with us to restore that balance in our larger political debate in the interest of finding practical, bipartisan solutions to put Americans back to work.