Democrats put the filibuster in the hot seat. Here it comes from

But the idea of ​​using refrigeration that conveys the House to kill a bill by a filibuster is not in the U.S. Constitution, and probably not what Washington had in mind.

According to the official website of Senate.gov, it started to happen so much in the middle of the 19th century that the term “filibuster” was born – derived from the Dutch word “freebooter” and the Spanish word “filibustros”, which were pirates who made an invasion of a Caribbean Island. island at the time.

But there was no mechanism at all to overcome filibusters for the first century and a quarter of the U.S. Senate.

It was not until 1917 that a frustrated President Woodrow Wilson persuaded the Senate to pass a rule – known as RULE 22 – that allowed senators to vote to break a filibuster. It was, and still is, known as an appeal to the colors. ‘(Fun factL The first time the new rule was used was to try to overcome a filibuster of the Treaty of Versailles in 1919).

Initially, the voting threshold to break a filibuster was a super-majority – 67 votes. But it has always been difficult to achieve and has become more difficult as the years go by, and it was changed in 1975 to 60 votes, that’s where it stands today.

‘Jim Crow’s Relic’

Southern senators have used the filibuster for years to block civil rights legislation – including anti-corpse bills.

According to Senate.gov, Senator Strom Thurmond of South Carolina spoke for 24 hours and 18 minutes against the Civil Rights Act of 1957 in the longest continuous filibuster in Senate history.

Only in 1964 did senators finally overcome a filibuster to pass the Civil Rights Bill when former Senate Majority Leader Lyndon Johnson was president.

In 2013, when Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid was so fed up with the GOP’s obstruction of then-President Barack Obama’s judicial nominees, he led a major change so that presidential nominations were just a simple majority. need to confirm, which helped attract more Obama judges. the bench. When Republicans took control of the Senate, they used the same 51-vote threshold to confirm a record number of Conservative judges appointed by then-President Donald Trump.

What does ‘Talking Filibuster’ mean?

In recent years, senators have used the filibuster so much that it is expected that most legislation will require 60 votes to pass, rather than a simple majority of 51 out of 100 senators.

It is now so ingrained that the leaders of the Senate majority tend to plan so-called toddler votes to overcome the 60-vote threshold immediately.

The idea is to make it more painful to file a filibuster against a bill – to have more events like when Texas Republican Senator Ted Cruz spoke for hours against Obamacare, in part by reading “Green Eggs and Ham” , or when Sen Rand Paul, a Republican from Kentucky, spoke for 13 hours against the use of military drones.

But experts like former Senate MP Alan Frumin say the ‘talking filibuster’ is unlikely to help stop obstruction.

The reason: let’s say Republicans filter HR1, the House law passed. If enough GOP senators are willing to speak, they can take turns and go through the night all day.

The filibuster senators may, moreover, consider it politically advantageous to show their opposition to a bill. The process will therefore change, but the result – legislation that gets stuck in the Senate without an end to it – may not.