Timothy Birdnow

I don't know why the Republicans can't figure out that the Democrats are going to do this as soon as they are in power.

Dem. Senator Chris Murphy admitted they are plotting this on the Nobody Knows Anything podcast.

Republicans in the Senate have resisted eradicating the filibuster out of some misplaced sense of "tradition". But the filibuster is not written into the Constitution nor is it a venerable ancient rule going back to the beginning; the filibuster was an accident from it's inception.

Aaron Burr accidentally created it when he was cleaning up unused Senate rules. One was a time limit on debate by Senators similar to the one in the House. This made it possible to continue to speak indefinitely - and thus simply gum up the works of the Senate, preventing a vote.

So it wasn't even a rule put in place - just a result of eliminating other rules.

It was named after the Dutch word vrijbuiter meaning pirate because you were essentially commandeering the ship of state and stealing it.

It wasn't until the 1840's when Henry Clay sought to limit Senate debate and the Senate thretened to debate that rule change indefinitely that it started using it extensively that the filibuster became anything other than a curiosity.

But always it had to be someone actually speaking. In later years they would often read from the telephone book.

Cloture was put in place in 1917 to allow an end to debate. Because cloture required a 2/3 vote it was very rare; in the subsequent forty years it was only invoked five times.

Strom Thermond held the record for a talking filibuster - 24 hours and 18 minutes. The old windbag had stamina, I must say. His record was finally broke by Corey "Spartacus" Booker who yacked for a solid 25 hours without pausing for breath.

In '75 cluture was lowered from 2/3 to 3/5ths.

The Senate also made a rule change in the seventies that created a "two track" system so that a filibuster didn't stop ALL Senate business so other business could be conducted.

This had the unintended side-effect of creating the Zombie filibuster where bills could simply be set aside for a time rather than tie up Senate business. The end result was that it was possible to just filibuster one bill by saying you were going to filibuster it - and thus simply force it to be removed from senate business.

If the Senate wants to keep the filibuster out of a sense of tradition they should rescind the two track system and force a talking filibuster again.

The Democrats will do this at a minimum, and if the talking filibuster is reimposed and the GOP starts filibustering they will remove even that. They have shown time and time again that tradition and good manners mean nothing to them - only power matters.

Sadly the GOP in the Senate still thinks these are reasonable people and they won't launch the birds against the Republicans. They are living in the past. Or they want what Democrats are pushing but fear angering their voters.

Politics is a blood sport. If you aren't willing to draw blood you don't belong in the game.

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