The Stackhouse Filibuster
Incensed by the lack of funding for deafness issues in a health care bill, an elderly senator begins a filibuster (1) to delay the vote on the bill, delaying everyone's plans to get away for the weekend. Sam vows to cut down on the number of reports by the General Accounting Office but is rebuked by an intern. CJ worries about whether she will suffer the curse of the cat goddess Bast, whose statue she broke a year earlier.
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Filibusters (last updated July 2001)
A congressional privilege that takes its name from 18th-century pirates who would hold people hostage for long periods of time, the Senate filibuster stems from two sources: first, the Senate's lack of restrictions on debate and second, the limited number of days in a two-year legislative session (about 300 a session in the second half of the 20th century). Taking advantage of the tension therein, a single senator (or more likely, a small group of senators taking turns) can hold up all other Senate business by refusing to let a pending piece of legislation go to a vote.
When this happens, those supporting the filibustered piece of legislation must decide if it is worth all the time and business lost until the filibustering senators give up. Thus, filibustering senators can force the withdrawal of legislation they do not support even if they are in the minority.
Because the only restriction on Senate debate is vague (under Rule XIX, a Senator is limited to two speeches per question per day, but since a "legislative day" in the Senate lasts until the Senate adjourns, it is unclear how to apply this limit in reality), the only way to override a filibuster is through Senate Rule XXII, which allows the Senate to invoke cloture and thus cut off debate.
However, this provision has several limitations. First, cloture cannot be voted upon until two days after it is proposed, and second, a supermajority of the Senate (2/3 of those senators present and voting) is required. Third, cloture if successfully invoked still does not immediately cut off debate; Rule XXII allows for 30 more hours of debate before a vote on the legislation is finally called. Thus, even an filibuster ended due to cloture will still cost more than three days of Senate business.
Nonetheless, the modern version of Rule XII is more lenient than its predecessors. Adopted in 1917, Rule XXII originally required a two-third supermajority of all senators to successfully invoke cloture and allowed for one more hour per senator for debate before a vote could be taken. The reduced threshold of the modern Rule XXII has made attempts to invoke cloture more common and more likely to succeed; a study by the Brookings Institute found that there were 19 attempts from 1917 to 1949 and that only 21 percent succeeded, and that there were 284 attempts from 1975 to 1994 and 41 percent succeeded.
Proponents of the filibuster argue that the filibuster helps moderate extreme legislation, blocks passage of measures opposed by a popular majority, and is part of the culture of the Senate. Others, such as Sarah A. Binder and Steven S. Smith in their book "Politics or Principle?," however, say that it allows a small group of senators to override popular will and that it was never intended by the Founding Fathers.
Perhaps the most significant use of the filibuster in the 20th century was in opposing civil rights legislation. Southern Democrats and conservative Republicans used the filibuster to derail civil rights litigation several times in the 1950s and 1960s; Strom Thurmond holds the record for the longest filibuster, speaking for 24 hours and 18 minutes to block the 1957 Civil Rights Act, which in a much diluted form ultimately did go to a vote and become law.
Including fictional accounts, perhaps the most famous example of a filibuster still remains the climax of the 1939 Frank Capra film Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, in which Senator Jefferson Smith (played by Jimmy Stewart) talks for more than 23 hours against a corrupt political boss before collapsing on the Senate floor.
Some senators have proposed reform at various times. Most recently, in January 1995, when Republicans took control of the Senate for the first time in years, two Democratic Senators, Tom Harkin of Iowa and future Vice-Presidential candidate Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut, proposed changing the filibuster rules so that a simple majority could end debate. Bob Dole, then the new Majority Leader, rejected the proposal, mindful of a time when the Republicans would no longer hold a majority and would need tactics such as a filibuster to block legislation.
Sources: Sarah A. Binder and Steven S. Smith, Politics or Principle? Filibustering in the United States Senate, Brookings Institution (1996). Charles and Barbara Whalen, The Longest Debate: A legislative history of the 1964 Civil Rights Act (1985). The Senate website also has pages discussing debate, filibusters, and the effectiveness of delaying the process.
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By Stephen Lee
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