Sigh. I see that we're once again going through a "talking filibuster" phase. If only things were like Mr. Smith Goes to Washington and senators had to actually talk in order to stave off a vote. That would solve all our problems!
First off: has anyone ever actually watched the movie? Mr. Smith talks for 25 hours and it doesn't do any good. The bad guys just cackle and move on with their plan to rob widows and orphans. In order to squeeze out a happy ending, Claude Rains has to burst onto the Senate floor and confess to everything.
Second: we used to have a talking filibuster. Remember? It didn't stop anyone from filibustering back then and it hasn't stopped anyone recently. Ted Cruz, Bernie Sanders, and Rand Paul have all launched into filibusters in recent years.
Third: Even the more excitable among you should be scratching your chin over this idea anyway. Are we seriously suggesting that giving a long speech can kill a bill? How? All you have to do is wait for the speech to be over and then vote. So what's the deal?
That's a good question! Every time liberals get frustrated about the 60-vote Senate, someone brings up the talking filibuster. And then someone has to explain why that won't do any good. And then everyone forgets until the next time.
So: a single person filibustering is a stunt, nothing more. It's designed solely to show your constituents how serious you are. That's what Strom Thurmond was doing when he spent 24 hours filibustering the 1957 Civil Rights Act—which passed two hours later, as he knew perfectly well it would.
In a real talking filibuster, the minority has to keep talking. That means talking for a few hours and then handing the floor to someone else. For example, Republicans might agree that everyone will talk for five hours. With 50 senators in the caucus, that's 250 hours of talk. Then, since members are allowed two speeches each, they do it again. That's 500 hours. Then, if there are any amendments, they do it again. That's 1,000 hours, or about six weeks.
None of this is painful in the least for the minority party. None of them have to stay on the floor to watch the show. They just have to be prepared to talk for five hours every week or so.
Conversely, the majority party (i.e., Democrats at the moment) is screwed. They have to maintain a quorum at all times. If for even a few minutes there are fewer than 50 senators around, the minority can suggest the lack of a quorum. If fewer than 50 senators show up after a quorum call, the minority can end business for the day and then the whole thing starts all over.
In other words, this is a cakewalk for the minority party, but literally every single member of the majority party has to remain in the Senate chambers, sleeping on cots at night, 24 hours a day for weeks on end.
Oh, and did I mention that the Senate is shut down this entire time? The minority doesn't care about this since they can't introduce any legislation anyway, but it means the majority party can't do anything either. No BBB. No John Lewis Act. No appropriations hearings. Etc.
Like it or not, the talking filibuster won't solve any problems unless you make a whole bunch of other procedural changes too. And Democrats don't have the votes for that any more than they have the votes for any other filibuster reform.
So just forget it, OK? The talking filibuster is not an answer to our problems. It would only make things worse.
Yeah sure… that’s the point now. Nothing remotely controversial gets passed in the senate. Oh sure… endless war and unlimited military spending never get filibustered. Which tells you all you need to know about the priorities of this government. They will send people to die for Ukraine, but can’t be bothered to give actual Americans a hand job.
Watch Biden spend hours out of every day doing stuff for people… just not you.
It’s a disgrace. Here’s hoping thousands of US military are slaughtered defending Ukraine. No one will give a fuck. I sure won’t.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/14/us/politics/russia-ukraine-biden-military.html
“In Afghanistan, the United States showed itself to be dismal at fighting insurgencies. But when it comes to funding them, military experts say it is a different ballgame.”
That’s a hoot.
“Some Ukraine experts point to Crimea, where there has been little armed resistance since Russia invaded.”
I’d let Putin be president of the new confederacy if it meant my taxes never make it to Mississippi or Alabama… or about a dozen other states in the south and west.
Actually, the US did quite well fighting the Taliban. What we failed at was teaching and motivating Afghans to fight them. Apparently the large majority of Afghans don’t care if their sons are taught nothing but the Koran, and their daughters are taught nothing at all. They don’t apparently miss music, the arts, or sports either.
actually, from a military standpoint, the u.s. does quite well fighting insurgencies. taliban could not have defeated u.s. forces strictly on a military basis. the north vietnamese could not have defeated u.s. forces strictly on a military basis.
unfortunately, the military part of the equation is only half the "battle." the other half, identifying and supporting a faction capable of nation-building, capable of holding its end of the bargain civilly and militarily, is the part of the equation we suck at.
“Watch Biden spend hours out of every day doing stuff for people… just not you.”
You know, I’m ok with that. I retired at 69-1/2 and have enough income to meet my mostly modest needs. I hope President Biden continues to focus on helping people who actually need it.
Thank you.
Better Biden trying to help than the grifters.
Of course, I was referring to him spending time doing stuff for people in other countries as opposed to Americans.
I'm still trying to puzzle this out. Is the federal government now expected to provide sexual services to every American man? Who's been lobbying for this? Are American women going to be unwillingly drafted to "serve"??
Yes! And really, anyone can do that for you.
What about a talking filibuster but require the filibustering party to have 40 Senators present & accounted for at all times?
If they have just 39, filibuster done. Take a vote.
Democrats need a new filibuster proof agenda. And it’s main goal is to do nothing at all.
Bingo.
Well, that is what I think it ought to be. It is too damn easy to filibuster right now. There is no cost to it. No long nights which bore people to tears. No press coverage of the bill blocking "debate".
I am totally in favor of the people who want to block a bill produce the votes. I am also in favor of the majority party being able to call a vote at any time so that the Republicans have to have 41 votes at all hours of the day. If you want to filibuster a bill you better be damn ready to filibuster it.
Came here to say this. Rules are easy:
(1) 40 people must be interested enough to listen;
(2) someone must be talking at all times;
(3) other quorum rules waived;
(4) as soon as there are fewer than 40 people on the floor, cloture occurs.
No reason not to do this, and it's a great way to kill the filibuster without killing the filibuster.
Bingo.
Yes. Norm Ornstein has written a lot about ways to alter the filibuster without totally getting rid of it. One is requiring that the opposition must be able to supply 41 votes at all times to maintain the filibuster. None of this calling it in stuff.
Limit the number of Senators who participate in a filibuster, and any Senator who wants to participate in filibuster must stay through the entire filibuster--or else the filibuster ends.
So, the Filibuster is not Menudo.
maybe it should be...yes, they now have to sing their objections...
This real talking filibuster semantic is a waste of time. Sinema has already hijacked it and ultimately it would have been whatever the Ds could have agreed upon, real, "real", or fake.
There’s plenty of problems with the talking filibuster, as you mention, but they one good thing about it is the American people would actually know who is filibustering.
One of the big deficiencies right now is that the majority of people don’t understand what the filibuster is (hence the constant framing as “laws need 60 votes to pass” rather than “one party is preventing a simple majority vote from taking place”) and as a result, there is virtually ZERO political consequence even one party just does it constantly.
That is an important point. A talking filibuster would get press coverage, whereas today's "well we just have to threaten it" filibuster carries no political price. Make the bastards pay.
That's a great idea! All the press coverage is necessarily coverage of the opposition's point of view, but that can't hurt anything. Can it? What could go wrong?
It depends how the press would present a talking filibuster. If they frame it as republicans bringing senate business to a halt because they won’t allow a simple up or down vote on universal pre-k, or the child tax credit, or rural broadband, or increased ACA subsidies, or any of the thousand other “popularist” policies that democrats support, then I could see it hurting republicans. Of course, that assumes the press reports the situation accurately. A stretch, I know. But the talking filibuster does have the benefit of displaying publicly who is responsible for the gridlock in Washington.
I've gotta believed a talking filibuster would reduce the filibuster abuse of the McConnel era. Just the logistics of invoking hundreds of filibusters (263 uses in the last congress, vs. ~50/congress in the 90s-00s, and far fewer earlier) would seem to reduce its impact (though it would also use so much session time that we wouldn't get much done anyway).
It is a flaw. Flaws are to be removed as we move towards a more perfect Union.
Flip it.
Continue other business, but if the minority does not keep 41 votes on the floor at all times, an immediate vote happens.
This is a weird explanation. They can set the filibuster rules to be whatever they want. If they want to force 40 of the filibustering party to stay, they can do that.
When Republicans take control of congress after stealing the elections in 2022 and begin their reign of terror, what will you do? What will the Biden administration do? What will the few democrats left in congress do?
In the rules until 1970 (with a change from 1949-1959), cloture was invoked by 2/3 of those voting, so there's no reason that couldn't be the rule.
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That's so funny.
Procedurally the talking filibuster could certainly block a particular bill, and it or the threat thereof enabled Southern Democrats to block equal-rights bills for a long time. But there is a big difference in that the talking filibuster blocks all legislation. This is the main reason that the cloture rule was changed and the filibuster is now a formalism - so that business could proceed.
Most people are dissatisfied with Congress, and the main reason seems to be that it doesn't get things done. As others point out and as as the Jimmy Stewart movie emphasized a filibuster draws attention to what is going on - or actually not going on - in Congress. So a talking filibuster would tend to put the general onus of Congress not getting things done on the filibustering party. This could be important for people who don't normally pay much attention to politics - that is the "Independents" or swing voters.
No, Kevin, I think you've missed the point.
The advantage of the talking filibuster wasn't anything that you allude to, but the fact that it was only indulged in rarely, if the filibusterer(s) really, really felt strongly about a bill. What we have now is a system whereby every single majority bill, unless it can be tucked under an exemption, is treated as if it's being filibustered against and has to invoke cloture - which happened very rarely under the old system, partly because the filibuster itself was rare.
Until they recently invented this system where you don't actually have to speak to filibuster, and it became effortless to do so, there was never any presumption that all bills, or even a substantial subset of bills, would be filibustered.
+1
Mechanically one would think that requirng the 'Talking Filibuster" imposes transaction costs that are significantly more than those currently imposed.
Drum's analysis seems rather excessively either/or, and presumes a complete discipline on the part of the Minority for a filibuster. While certainly that can happen, recent history also suggests that such an organised talking filibuster could not be driven by fringe members in quite the way that it appears the present system allows.
And in imposing a broad transaction cost to not only the blocked bill but wider ones, this also ups the transaction cost (and potentially political capital costs) for using. Upping the cost (and making the costs visible as noted by Skeptonomist supra) has some potential for serving a purpose in making usage more expensive in time terms, with the broader impact being part of the cost.
While clearly not a magic bullet solve-all solution, in the world of the possible choices this one at least appears possible as after all it is a small c conservative change to a return to a historical practice. Harder to argue against. Raise the presence costs further and one at least has a plausible probability that usage, as more broadly costly, is narrowed.
And he continued as a Senator for how many more decades? … He did, for better or worse, what those who voted for him wanted, which was to fight for their cause, however lost. They wanted at least the symbols. He just did it by camping out on the Senate floor for 24 hours rather than on the Capitol steps.
Something I meant to add: You can think of it as pork for the constituency if you like: https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2017/09/congress-is-broken-bring-back-pork/
"The particular kind of talking filibuster I have in mind wouldn't work so therefore no form of talking filibuster would help" is not the compelling argument you seem to think it is.
Kevin thinks it’s Fox News but I think Fox News works because of all our veto points
The filibuster is an anti-democratic provision of Senate rules and not a constitutional institution. It was very little used before the mid-20th century. In a very ironic twist, it might--if it survives--be the one thing that may slow an anticipated anti-democratic slide based on a conservative minority being able to take and hold the House through gerrymandering and vote suppression. In the near future, Republicans have a much greater chance of taking the Senate, House, and Presidency. So in that world, how much damage could they do if there were no filibuster? Of course, how long would the filibuster survive if a real restructuring of governmental power in a conservative direction were really on the table?
I don't see any reason to believe that the Republicans will preserve the filibuster if they gain the Senate majority. What possible reason would they have for retaining it and giving the Dems a tool for obstructing Republican plans? The Republicans will get rid of the filibuster and then use their simple majority to pass laws that ensure permanent Republican majorities.