Nate Silver has a graph that doesn't depend on projections from July 2007. Seems like Republicans slowed down the obstruction a bit but still handily set a record.

That graphic is from July 2007. Was the projection was accurate?

Heh, KCinDC beat me to it. Answer: the projection was triple the previous Congress' number, when in fact it the number of filibusters turned out to be only double. Clearly, this is good news for Republicans. /snark

In other words, the projection wasn't accurate, but the basic point - far more than in previous years - was completely true. Truthy, but in a good way.

Thanks, KCinDC. I clicked for the comments precisely because I was wondering about that.

The problem is Harry Reid has no balls. Hopefully Obama can lend him his once in a while.

Either abolish the filibuster, or abolish the "procedural" filibuster, i.e. make these idiots actually get up there and talk if they want to filibuster.

With a Democratic majority in the Senate, there is simply no rational reason why they should let a minority of senators should be able to block anything. There is literally no reason to continue to allow the filibuster. YET the Democrats will allow it anyway. This is the kind of thing that makes you really, really hate the party.

Everyone who was against the filibuster 3 years ago, please raise your hands.

What's next, passionate arguments about how the president should be allowed to wiretap without a warrant?

Everyone who was against the filibuster 3 years ago, please raise your hands.

What is your point? Right now, the filibuster will only be used by Republicans to block Democratic legislation. So it should be abolished. That's a bad thing. Three years ago, it (theoretically) would have been used by Democrats to block GOP legislation. A good thing. Bad now, good then. Not that complicated.

What's next, passionate arguments about how the president should be allowed to wiretap without a warrant?

If there were a constitutional right to filibuster, this analogy might make some sense.

jeebus- Are you listening to yourself? That's the most short-sighted thing I've heard in a while. If the GOP gains back the Senate, we'll want the filibuster back.

That's the most short-sighted thing I've heard in a while. If the GOP gains back the Senate, we'll want the filibuster back.

Well:

1. Why would we want it back? The Democrats don't use it anyway, because they have no balls. So if I had to choose for all time, I'd say fuck the filibuster, it does us more harm than good.

2. Even if we do want it when the GOP regains the majority, there's nothing stopping them from doing away with it then. Your comment assumes that they would keep it around out of appreciation and a sense of fair play, since we didn't abolish it when they were in the minority. Right.

I agree with jeebus -- make the filibustering Senators stay on the Senate floor and talk about their possum recipes !
The filibuster should be re-conceived as an opportunity for the embattled minority to present their views and persuade the other Senators and the public, rather than just an obstructionist tactic.

make the filibustering Senators stay on the Senate floor and talk about their possum recipes!

This is really the most important thing. If you want to keep the old fashioned filibuster, fine. What we have now shouldn't even be called a filibuster. We just have a "41 senators can prevent a bill from being voted on, if they so choose" rule.

Forcing them to filibuster for real would (a) discourage filibustering in most cases, (b) draw media attention when the filibuster did happen, putting GOP obstructionism on the nightly news, and (c) think of all the stupid, damaging shit that is likely to come out of the mouths of these cretins if they are forced to talk for hours on end.

yes, This is really the most important thing.

You folks might want to keep the filibuster. There will come a time in the near future, where the Democrats will over step their bounds. The people will realize their mistake and go running back to the Republicans. It's a natural ebb and flow. I'm glad Obama got elected. Welcome back Carter!!! We all know what happened after Carter was done ruining the country...we got Reagan!

There are two separate issues : Eliminating the filibuster and invoking the nuclear option.

The nuclear option is not just to change the rules but to change the rules with a simple majority by lying. It requires the vice President to declare that the rule says something other than what it says and the majority to approve his interpretation.

I agree with Marshall that that shouldn't be done. There would be no limit on the majority -- at all (hey can we declare that freshman senators in the next senate can't vote so the other party can't get control of the senate ? Sure we can). Not a good idea.

On the other hand the rules can legitimately be changed (by 60 votes). Now I sure don't think there are 60 votes to eliminate the filibuster (I doubt there are 50 hell I doubt there are 10, the filibuster makes every senator a very powerful person).

I do think it would be improved it 55 votes were enough for cloture (but still need 60 to change the rules) and I sure think that the number for cloture should be 60 percent of those voting not 60 and cloture votes can be held at any time (so to filibuster a group of senators would have to stay in the chamber) but it's not gonna happen.

Oh to be picky, it wasn't 67 votes, it was 2 thirds of those voting.

One of things rarely mentioned about the filibuster is that is not indefinite. The most you can filibuster is fifteen days. Also the Senate majority leader can decide how much debate is allowed. In December of 2007 Reid gave Dodd only three days to filibuster. That was enough for Reid to table the fisa bill for a better time.
www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/crs/rl30360.pdf

I don't remember what bill it was, but the last time Reid made the Republicans actually filibuster, the media reported it as the Democrats "filibustering their own bill." With a mainstream media this ignorant, the only reason to eliminate the filibuster is to prevent the minority from blocking legislation. This is a perfectly good reason.

On the other hand the rules can legitimately be changed (by 60 votes). Now I sure don't think there are 60 votes to eliminate the filibuster

Anonymous at 9:06 pm makes an important distinction, between the so-called nuclear option which involves a damned lie and which would almost certainly shut the Senate down indefinitely (no more unanimous consent) and the actual amendment of the Senate rules. The mistake, though, is in the numbers. When the cloture requirement was changed in 1975 from 2/3 present and voting to 3/5 duly sworn, the one thing that was left at 2/3 present and voting was cutting off debate on a measure to amend the rules. Assuming 100 senators present, you'd need 67 to end debate on changing the rules to eliminate the filibuster.

Or we could just use the budget reconciliation process on every damn thing. Which would be my choice.

Actually, my preference is to eliminate the filibuster outright - in a democracy, the majority should rule, and the minority should try to raise hell and defend their rights in a court of law. The idea that the right to obstruct legislation is a proper right of the minority is just plain wrong. And yes, this would have been painful when the GOP was in charge - but the solution is to change the laws once you get into the majority.

Here's to the old-fashioned filibuster: let them talk for a month, lock the doors of the Senate chamber and make them piss into chamber pots.

I don't remember what bill it was, but the last time Reid made the Republicans actually filibuster, the media reported it as the Democrats "filibustering their own bill."

Yeah, the media is fucking stupid on this. Reid invoked the Rule V one-day suspension cutoff before the cloture vote, the GOP moved in cots, and the dumbass media thought it was a filibuster.

Point is, the media's attention-span has been so diminished by cablenews that a one-day debate seems like an eternity. Now think of how they'd react to a month of it, especially with the talk shows and Daily Show waiting to deal with it.

Reid has a small window during the first months of the Obama admin to allow the GOP Senate caucus to make prize tits of themselves. If he doesn't do it, he should resign his leadership position.

Now, on the wider issue: the Senate is already like the House of Lords, in that it has an innate bias towards the representatives of large expanses of fuck-all.

On the other hand the rules can legitimately be changed (by 60 votes).

The situation seems to be more complicated than that. The vote to pass a rule change is straight majority; but the vote to break a filibuster on a rule change, unlike other filibusters, is two-thirds of those present and voting. (See Senate Rule XXII.)

And, according to the Wikipedia article on the subject, the 1975 reduction of the cloture threshold from two-thirds to sixty was sparked in part by a controversial ruling from the Republican VP that cloture on rule changes only needed a simple majority vote. So go figure.

I think the relevant prudential question is, do we want filibusters forever (even with GOP majorities) or no filibusters forever (even with GOP majorities). And I think "No filibusters forever" is clearly a better option; it'll make it easier to pass progressive legislation that won't be rolled back.

filibuster is anti-progressive; we definitely ought to kill it.

of course this won't happen because the democrats are spineless geese.

Democracy means majority rule. The Senate is already way out of alignment with one person-one vote in representation, so a supermajority makes the Senate institutionally anti-representative.

This shouldn't be about either party, but the ability of a majority party to govern. And it isn't about 'unlimited debate' either, since no debate occurs during a filibuster. It is only about obstructionism.

Particularly obnoxious are filibusters carried out on procedural motions, like the motion to proceed to vote. This should be permanently forbidden. If a filibuster is to be provided, make it only on the votes on substance, and only with true extended debate (talk required, pertinent to the bill).

If the Dems don't reign-in the Repubs on the filibuster in the initial adoption of rules at the start of Congress, then the Dems won't be able to fulfill their election promises.

There is no justification for any rule that has its objective pure obstructionism. That is what the GOP has done since 2006, and now it is time to end it.

Would it be too soon to start counting up how many Democratic Senators will be up for re-election in 2010?

There is no justification for any rule that has its objective pure obstructionism. That is what the GOP has done since 2006, and now it is time to end it.

Liberals were singing a different tune when Bush was asking for Supreme Court nominations....

Dems need LBJ now. He had the gall and the balls to force his will on Southern Senators. He knew how to brow-beat, blackmail, extort and horsetrade his opponents into submission. Obama isn't there yet. Govrning is tough and it takes toughness, not finesse, to get it done!

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