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The United States Senate prides itself as being the world’s greatest deliberative body since it has long been a forum for free debate that protects political minorities. The filibuster is one of the traditions the body. The spirit of the rule is to make compromise a requirement to get things done but the tradition has come under increasing scrutiny in recent years. Calls to remove the filibuster from Senate bylaws have become increasingly louder as partisanship grows. Today we’ll be reviewing the history and rules of the filibuster.
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The filibuster is a Senate tradition that supports unlimited debate over bills. The original version of the filibuster was adopted by the first US Senate in 1789 and allowed a simple majority vote to end debate. A few years later, this provision was removed so there was no way to stop a filibuster once it began. That said, simple majority votes were a principal of the body and the filibuster was not used to block legislation until 1837.
In 1917, the Senate would create the rule of cloture which allowed a filibuster to be ended with a two thirds majority vote. During this time period, senators would take to the Senate podium and speak for hours on end to prevent a vote on legislation. Democratic Senator Strom Thurmond of South Carolina set a Senate record speaking for 24 hours and 18 minutes to stall the vote on the 1957 civil rights act.
Since only one bill could be introduced at a time, this slowed work in the Senate considerably leading to a series of reforms in the 1970s. Cloture was reduced to 60 votes and two or more bills could be introduced at the same time. The number of filibusters and clotures would rise dramatically because of the rule changes.
In recent decades, the so called nuclear option has been increasingly used. The nuclear option is when the majority part changes the Senate rules to appoint nominees and pass laws. In 2013, Democrats under Senate Majority leader Harry Reid would invoke the nuclear option to end Republican filibusters of the Obama Administration’s judicial and executive branch nominees. Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell said they would regret the change. Republicans under McConnell would later invoke the nuclear option for Supreme Court nominees allowing former President Trump to appoint 3 justices to the court.
Another major exception is a procedure called budget reconciliation. Budgets introduced by the House of Representatives only require a 50 vote majority to reconcile the differences between the House and Senate bills. There can only be 3 uses of budget reconciliation per year, they cannot increase the federal deficit, and cannot make changes to social security.
The 2020 election left the senate split 50/50 with Vice President Kamala Harris as the tie breaking vote. Democrats from around the country have called for the end of the rule so they can enact policy priorities. This change would allow whatever part to control the Senate the ability to enact their priorities more easily but would also make it easier for the opposition to repeal the laws in the future.
Do you think it’s time for the filibuster to go? If so, how do you think we should balance the concerns of the minority party given that no one holds power forever? Don’t forget to like, comment, and subscribe for more political analysis on Just the Issues. Thank you for watching and have a great day.