In Python 2.6a3:

>>> 1 >> (2**31)  # unexpected exception
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
OverflowError: long int too large to convert to int
>>> 1 >> (2**31-1)  # works as expected
0L

It might make more sense for the first expression to return 0 instead.
Similarly, perhaps 0 << (2**31) should also return 0.