The Filibuster

[JDPriestly]

But though we've long had the filibuster, we have not long had a Senate that used it to impose a 60-vote requirement on all controversial legislation. Dramatizing the difference between the filibuster that was used to express opposition and filibuster that is used to impose a supermajority voting requirement is a bit difficult. But David Broockman, a senior at Yale, sent along a letter he came across in the LBJ presidential library that does it better than any document I've seen.

The letter was written by Mike Manatos, who served as Senate liaison for Johnson, and addressed to Larry O'Brien, who directed Johnson's campaign. It was written Dec. 8, 1964, just days after the election. Manatos is giving O'Brian an overview of how the Senate elections improved the chances of passing Medicare. He writes:

. . . .

"We would win by a vote of 55 to 45." Phil Schiliro would not write that letter to David Plouffe today. There would be no vote of 55 to 45, because the filibuster would forestall the vote. The fact that 55 Democrats support a controversial bill would be immaterial unless there was some strategy for attracting five more senators to the side of the administration.

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2009/11/how_a_letter_from_1964_shows_w.html

I remember the filibusters in the 1950s. They actually forced the Southern Democrats (I remember their filibusters best) to stand in the Senate all night long (or so we were told). Harry Reid should just call the Republicans' bluff. Let Lieberman stand there all night reading the phone book. Let them hold up the Senate's work all night for weeks on end. Don't pass any other bills, not even emergency bills, until health care is passed.

That's how it has to be done. A few real filibusters and the Republicans will use them sparingly. In general, the senators are not youthful or fit. They will soon tire of the long nights.

[valerief]

1. Filibuster

Someone who busts fillies.

Misogynist.

[librechik]

2. the senate will never change that rule again.

They are incapable of change, adaptation, or adjustment. They are like flies frozen in amber, terrified to do anything lest the crystal ice they are balanced on dissolve and drown them.

I hate the Senate. Is not useful or representative of the people anymore (if it ever was.)

To me it is a horrible relic of slavery that keeps the people enslaved to the powerful. I think we should make do with just the House for our legislation in the time we have left on earth. Do you think the Senate will allow us to save the planet from climate change? I think they would rather everyone die before they make a move which might upset their corporate owners.

[Winterblues]

3. The Senate was never designed to be Representative of the people

That is what your Representatives are for. It was designed so the unwashed masses would not take over the government and run it into the ground. It was a way of maintaining the hierarchy, where the well healed land owners would have the say, with the illusion there, that the people actually had a voice..It still works to that end..

[librechik]

4. exactly--carrying on the proposition that rather than all being equal

some are more equal than others. An un-American and (fairly inhuman)concept.

[JDPriestly]

5. Actually, the Senate was devised to protect the interests of the states

which translates to mean to protect the interests of slaveowners. Slaves were not permitted to vote.

Nowadays states like Idaho and Montana get just as many votes as states like California and New York. It is not government by the people but government by the people in small states. Not fair.

[liberalpragmatist]

6. Except there would be no talking

Because of rules changes, no longer does it 41 votes to sustain a filibuster - it takes 60 votes to END a filibuster, and there needs to be a quorum. The party that has to keep its members in the body is the majority party, not the minority party. All the Republicans would have to do would be to go home, and prevent a quorum, which means the Senate would just shut down.

So there wouldn't be any long-running speeches or reading from the phonebook. That's all in the past.

[excess_3]

7. a quotum is 51 votea .nt