Filibusters: The Senate’s Self-Inflicted Wound
By Jean Edward Smith
NYT Blog
Barack Obama — unlike the other five presidents my colleagues and I are discussing on this blog — must contend with a worrisome new feature in American politics: the trivialization of the filibuster in the Senate. A simple majority vote no longer suffices to pass major pieces of legislation. Instead, in almost every case, the Senate must muster at least 60 votes (a “supermajority”) to close off debate. And because of a rule the Senate adopted relating to deficit spending, it took another 60 votes to pass the stimulus package last month.
Historically, the filibuster was a last-ditch tactic used by an obstructionist minority to prevent passage of a bill by taking advantage of Senate rules that permitted unlimited debate. A measure would simply be “talked to death.” It was widely regarded as misuse of the rules, and was used sparingly. The origin of the word “filibuster” reflected its outlaw status. It was first applied to buccaneers in the West Indies who preyed on Spanish commerce to South America. According to Webster’s, a filibusterer was “a freebooter or soldier of fortune against a foreign country with which his own country is at peace.”
(More here.)
NYT Blog
Barack Obama — unlike the other five presidents my colleagues and I are discussing on this blog — must contend with a worrisome new feature in American politics: the trivialization of the filibuster in the Senate. A simple majority vote no longer suffices to pass major pieces of legislation. Instead, in almost every case, the Senate must muster at least 60 votes (a “supermajority”) to close off debate. And because of a rule the Senate adopted relating to deficit spending, it took another 60 votes to pass the stimulus package last month.
Historically, the filibuster was a last-ditch tactic used by an obstructionist minority to prevent passage of a bill by taking advantage of Senate rules that permitted unlimited debate. A measure would simply be “talked to death.” It was widely regarded as misuse of the rules, and was used sparingly. The origin of the word “filibuster” reflected its outlaw status. It was first applied to buccaneers in the West Indies who preyed on Spanish commerce to South America. According to Webster’s, a filibusterer was “a freebooter or soldier of fortune against a foreign country with which his own country is at peace.”
(More here.)
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