The filibuster we witnessed by Jimmy Stewart in the Movie “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington” was the classic filibuster in which a Senator who wanted to kill the passage of a bill did so by speaking interminably on the Senate floor until the interest in passing the bill subsided (in Jimmy Stewart’s case, he was filibustering for honest government, whereas in reality, the filibuster rule has more often been used to kill good legislation). In times past, the Senator could recognize one of his colleagues to continue the speech, turning over occupation of the floor, so that a small group of Senators could effectively prevent a bill from ever coming to a vote. Sometimes the bill opposition Senator and his colleagues would have to stay on the floor for long periods to block passage of the bill and any moment of weakness or a pause could result in bringing the bill to the floor, where it only needed a simple majority to pass. But those days are gone and haven’t been used since a new arrangement was made in 1975.
(Note: Much of the history of the filibuster was taken from Wikipedia). The term filibuster was first used in 1851 and its definition means “pirate” or hijacking the process. It was practiced in the Roman Senate and has also occurred in the British House of Commons where filibuster means “talked out.” The filibuster was an historic method that, for one thing, was used to keep slavery in existence. “In 1946, Southern Senators blocked a vote on a bill proposed by Democrat Dennis Chavez of New Mexico that would have created a permanent Fair Employment Practices Committee (FEPC) to prevent discrimination in the work place. The filibuster lasted weeks, and Senator Chavez was forced to remove the bill from consideration after a failed cloture vote even though he had enough votes to pass the bill.” Senator Strom Thurmond (then D-SC, later R-SC)) set the modern record for an individual when he filibustered the Civil Rights Act of 1957 for 24 hours and 18 minutes, although the bill ultimately passed. The essence of the filibuster is that it allows a minority or a single person to block any bill favored by the majority. To close a filibuster through the “cloture” process, one needs a 3/5 majority and hence it’s the epicenter of the problem we face today, where the Republicans have voted in a block and are keeping many important bills from being passed and Federal nominees from being considered. As we have seen, the healthcare bill in the Senate was morphed into its current, more odious form, because, to get the super majority vote of 60, concessions had to be given to conservative Democrats, greatly weakening the bill and increasing its unpopularity.
Historically, because of the personal drain demanded by the mind-numbing process of the filibuster, and the fact that it often made the filibustering Senator look like a clown, it was used very rarely. But, in 1975, the Jimmy Stewart version of the filibuster was rendered extinct and replaced by a form of filibuster in which the mere filing of a motion to extend the debate indefinitely can take place without any floor appearance or clown performances. Under the new rule, the bill can be brought forward for consideration only when a super majority of 60 votes meets the cloture rule. Thus, without a word being said, the threat of a filibuster is the same as the real thing and since that rule change, the filibuster has been used far more often than it was in its historic past, aided no doubt by the polarization we see between the two parties. The accompanying graph illustrates the increased numerology of the filibuster–gridlock city in the Senate.
From Wikipedia
The constitution provides that ‘a majority of each [house] shall constitute a quorum to do business.’ In other words, there is nothing in the constitution that demands a filibuster rule and in one very direct way, you could argue that the filibuster is an unconstitutional element of the Senate rules. Moreover, the Supreme Court ruled in 1892 (U.S. v. Ballin), that the senate voting rules could be changed by a majority, i.e., by 51 votes. Contemporary scholars point out that in practice, narrow Senate majorities were able to enact legislation. Majorities were able to prevail because of an implicit threat that the filibuster could itself be changed by majority rule if the minority used it to prevent, instead of merely to delay, votes on measures supported by a bare majority. Why isn’t that being done anymore? So what’s to prevent the Senate from voting to eliminate the filibuster? Absolutely nothing except the makeup of their own vertebral columns. We are all aware that in modern times, the normally bony structure of the vertebral columns of Democrats has been replaced by a gelatinous substance that collapses at the first sign of stress.
Thus, as Tom Geoghegan has argued in The Nation, it would take only a majority vote in the senate to do away with the filibuster altogether. It is an ancient, archaic tool of obstruction, that has no place in a deliberative body that is trying to set the country right against a force of obstructionists who are desperately trying to save their own political party from the trash can of history. The next time a Senator asks you for a contribution to make sure we get back to a super majority in the Senate, tell him/her that it only takes a majority of the Senate, each equipped with their own version of a normal vertebral backbone, to vote for permanent elimination of the filibuster rule in the Senate and add it as a topping to the overdue demise of the Republican Party. Elimination of the filibuster rule would then make it easy to put back the public option and add Medicare for 55 year-olds into a new healthcare bill and pass it with ease. That’s the bill that had the highest level of popularity in the polls. The polls show that the Democrats would gain by this simple strategy. Furthermore, the enormous public agenda that must be addressed to deal with jobs, healthcare, regulatory control and excessive military spending would become much easier. The health of the Democratic party would be improved by the election process, where opponents of “blue dog” or “corporatist Democrats” could campaign against their obstructionist voting record in the primary elections. The reputation that the Senate has today as the obstructionist political body, would disappear. It could be a true revolution, getting us asymptotically closer to the nirvana of solution-ville.
With the recent Supreme Court ruling that gives corporations unlimited capacity to contribute to election campaigns, new legislation will be required to modify the impact of this ruling and we know that Republicans will be against each of these solutions, serving their own self-interests for more corporate money. For example, we must make sure that if corporations make such contributions, it comes out of company profits, without a tax deduction, so that, in essence, it comes from the shareholders of the corporation. The Republicans have made it very clear that they will vote in a block to oppose any Democratic legislation, so why not respond in the most appropriate way that gives the Democratic party the vertebral factor it needs to acquire true national leadership qualities–eliminate the filibuster, put back the public option and let’s get on with our lives. Here, here!
RFM
RFM
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