Few people expected a California water fight in the final days of a lame-duck Congress, and fewer still expected landmark water legislation to pit the state’s U.S. senators against each other in the last moments of their 24-year partnership. It took years of negotiations, and the right political timing, to bring the first major water policy affecting California in decades through the House and Senate. Over frayed feelings and filibuster threats, both chambers overwhelmingly passed the bill, which changes how much water is pumped from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta to San Joaquin Valley farmers and Southern California.