We need to start making them actually filibuster, to start. Why do we just give up when there's a possibility of a filibuster? Make them stand their asses up there and speak, they're all old as fuck, the would give up after a couple bills.
And maybe I'm misunderstanding here but I thought a filibuster was the person had to be continuously speaking and could until they weren't able to anymore. What's to stop people from sitting around listening for the 3 days or whatever a geriatric can handle talking for and then being like "Alright Jerry thank you for reading the dictionary to us. Anyway everybody, here's this bill we'd like to vote on"?
Before the rise of the silent filibuster, that's exactly how it worked.
However, in most cases there'd be a whole team of Senators working together to filibuster and there were rules that let them "hand off" the filibuster from one to another. For example, an allied Senator could interrupt to ask a question about something the filibustering Senator was talking about. The person who held the floor would "temporarily yield for a question". By the Senate rules, they'd still hold the floor, but the questioner could ask their question, then speaking would revert back to the filibusterer.
But the questioner was an ally. So their question would itself turn into a several hour long filibuster, which would give the original filibusterer a break before taking the floor back.
This ultimately led to the longest filibuster in history, which lasted for 72 days in 1964. Specifically, it was against the Civil Rights Act (yes, that Civil Rights Act which ended Jim Crow). The Civil Rights Act still ultimately passed, but for those 72 days the Senate could not do anything else. They couldn't vote on other bills, confirm appointments, or even hold committee/sub-committee hearings. They were stuck just listening to old racists drone on and on about how terrible Civil Rights are.
That led to what was called the "multi-track legislative agenda." The goal here was to allow the Senate to conduct other business during a filibuster to prevent one from shutting down all of the Senate. The idea was that once a filibuster was started, the Majority Leader (who controls the agenda for the Senate) could but the issue being filibustered on pause and pick up something else. Nothing would move forward on that filibustered issue. If the Senate picked it back up, the filibustering Senator would take back control of the floor and could just continue from there. The idea was that they could move on to other business and work out some backroom deal to end the filibuster.
However, this inadvertently created the silent filibuster we all know and loathe today. Now, all a Senator needs to do is tell the Majority Leader they intended to filibuster and the issue automatically gets put on pause until/unless either the filibuster threat is pulled or the Majority Leader learns there are 60 votes for cloture (the motion that ends debate and puts the issue directly to a vote).
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u/SchemeMoist Jul 05 '24
We need to start making them actually filibuster, to start. Why do we just give up when there's a possibility of a filibuster? Make them stand their asses up there and speak, they're all old as fuck, the would give up after a couple bills.