The Gaming Den

So, what's the real point of a filibuster? I mean, why do we have them in the first place? What are they supposed to accomplish?

I remember learning about them in school, and I never really understood them then. Is it to give the minority party a bit of leverage to keep the majority from running the table? Is it because they didn't have a good way to define how much time to discuss a topic is "reasonable", so they didn't want to impose an arbitrary limit? I have to be missing something.

I think it has to do with not just a small majority, but having 60% in order to win in the senate. so 51/49 doesn't matter because then it would be stalled so you need 60% to prevent a filibuster.

It is a tactic used above and beyond the vote in order to get your way is what i see it as.

i recall them mentioned in schools somewhat as well, but it was all just a bunch of mumble-fuck to me cause the teacher could have cared less about being there...so it just sticks in my memory as a 3-part system like legilative, judicial, and exectuvie, and how there can be no ties there because 2/3 wins so 60% is the closet to get 2/3 out of for a fair vote...anything else or less doesn't pass muster.

The Senate's actual purpose is to slow down the government and make change happen less often. The founders were really concerned that the people would elect some sort of fad-based government that would perform horrible excesses upon the liberties of the white landowning gentry. So they created the Senate as a filter that took literally six years to turn over, and probably wouldn't change that much in that time frame anyway, and had a number of rules and abilities to halt or postpone ideas from being enacted.

In short, the Founding Fathers really had no idea what a "business cycle" was, or why they might want to have the government change laws and funding for major programs on a continuous basis. And we've been paying for their short sightedness ever since.

On that note: can you believe that we don't have a national bank because the Founding Fathers wanted to protect the US financial system from bing controlled by disinterested oligarchs? Try to wrap your mind around that reasoning, I double dog dare you.

-Username17

1) As for the technicalities of why they exist. It's because the Senate purposefully has no limit to debate, partially to pretend to be a more considered body and partially to slow shit down.

So a Filibuster is where you keep talking about something to prevent an actual vote, however, it only works for as long as you keep talking.

2) A different issue, the ones that Republicans are using now, is the threat of filibuster, where you can't take a vote on a bill unless either a) everyone in the entire senate agrees to vote on it. b) 60 people get pissed off enough that they all vote yes on voting to quel a filibuster. So you just never bring any issue up unless you are already certain you have 60 votes once someone has made it clear they will filibuster.

Generally speaking, some people who would vote in favor are not willing to press the issue, and that's why we don't have healthcare.

Before the Senate votes on a bill, the Senate discusses the bill. For the Senate to move from the discussion phase to the actual vote, the Senate must pass a 'cloture motion,' which is a vote to end the discussion and vote for reals.

A cloture vote has a higher threshold for passage than a real vote. Ostensibly, this is so that a minority of reasonable size has the opportunity to put their views and objections on the congressional record without being stifled by the majority.

A filibuster is when the minority abuses this opportunity by refusing to end the discussion phase.

RobbyPants wrote:So, what's the real point of a filibuster? I mean, why do we have them in the first place? What are they supposed to accomplish?

I remember learning about them in school, and I never really understood them then. Is it to give the minority party a bit of leverage to keep the majority from running the table? Is it because they didn't have a good way to define how much time to discuss a topic is "reasonable", so they didn't want to impose an arbitrary limit? I have to be missing something.

Ostensibly, the filibuster (or cloture, whichever term you want), is supposed to be there for really important votes that it is felt need more than a simple majority to pass.

In reality, calling for one is about as easy as standing and yelling for it, figuratively speaking. Which is done intentionally, as a safeguard so a corrupt majority can't just shout a dude down.

But that makes it really easy to call it for anything.

So this past couple of years, there's been a record-setting number of filibusters called by Republicans on all kinds of issues. Just to slow down proceedings.

Yeah, that's kind of what I figured. I mean, I know how they're used, but I just wanted to know why we had them in the first place. I was hoping there was some magical answer out there I hadn't yet thought of that would make me hate the concept less.

Maxus wrote:Ostensibly, the filibuster (or cloture, whichever term you want), is supposed to be there for really important votes that it is felt need more than a simple majority to pass.

No. This is incorrect. Not as hilariously nonsensical as shadzar's version, but still incorrect.

angelfromanotherpin wrote:

Maxus wrote:Ostensibly, the filibuster (or cloture, whichever term you want), is supposed to be there for really important votes that it is felt need more than a simple majority to pass.

No. This is incorrect. Not as hilariously nonsensical as shadzar's version, but still incorrect.

It's been a while. I vaguely remember it being a failsafe or something. Or, it was intended to be.

Filibusters are intended to stop a tyranny of the majority. They are not in the constitution, but something in the parliamentary rules the Senate has agreed to. Democrats have used them in the last fifty years to halt things which were generally distasteful to a large minority. Historically they've been used to negate minority rights (by blocking civil rights). Republicans have used more in the current congress than the last thirty years.

To beat a filibuster, you need 60 votes aye present in the Senate floor. To continue it, you only need 1 nay as long as 60 votes aren't there.

What's worse, is that Holds can be used indefinitely. These were so one Senator can say, 'Hey, I want to discuss this point or come back to it' but in practice they're used as bargaining chips. Republicans have put holds on every Democratic selection - like, for instance, the Homeland Defense Director or all the lowly positions in the fed - for the last three Democratic Presidential terms. This means that the administration currently is missing a hundred leading positions, which makes doing regular business difficult. They can, and do put holds on judges and bills as well. There are over two hundred and ninety bills (The house has passed some since this count a month ago, the Senate has not passed any) which have passed the House but have not even been considered by the Senate this year. There are also several hundred district judge positions which are vacant, awaiting Senate approval.

Lastly, you may have heard of the Nuclear Option or Reconciliation. Often they're bandied about without real understanding of what they mean.

Reconciliation is where cloture is not required to vote upon a budgetary item - this was added so that the government could not be shut down by a simple filibuster. It merely takes a set number of hours to work through of floor time instead. So the filibuster of the federal transportation funds and unemployment extension (to take an example from this week) cannot go on indefinitely. It is also used when a bill has passed the House and the Senate in slightly different versions. The changes, if deemed appropriate by the Parliamentarian (most recently appointed by Republicans currently), can be passed by a simple majority without extended debate.

The Nuclear Option is completely different. It turns out that the parliamentary rules the Senate has adopted require only a simple majority to change. So it is possible to trump the rules and change them - in fact, we're operating under the rules adopted in 1994 and 1999 by the Republican Senate.

-Crissa

This is a very important point about the news around these details.

Aside from what Frank posits, I've never heard much of anything about why filibusters. As a rule, I only hear about filibusters as something Republicans use and use abusively, which goes to show that I'm not all that informed.

The senate has a lot of formal and informal rules in place which give individual senators a disproportionate amount of power, particularly to make things not happen. This makes the senators feel real big in the pants, and so is unlikely to change so long as the senate gets to set its own rules.