My Idea On The Filibuster
I am opposed to the silent filibuster.
I support a real filibuster.
I support a filibuster where Senators must stand there and speak. I’ll even loosen the rules – they can go to the bathroom, grab a bite to eat, and even sleep at night — just so long they have someone covering for them. You can ask your fellow filibuster supporters in the senate to cover for you up to 24 hours, but every 24 hours, you have to show up and remind us all how we got to this sheet show.
Sadly, if you’re the only one filibustering you gotta eat while talking and even talk in your sleep and look like an idiot (example: Ted Cruz). Sorry, there’s just no way around it. When you’re on your own, you’re on your own.
I think the filibuster should play constantly on CSpan and at least a continuous hour of it has to play on the nightly news channels. Let people see their senate at work.
Look, this is democracy, so if you have a good idea, you should be able to talk people into it and, by God, I wanna give you a chance to do it. If this bill will add a zero at the end of everybody’s paycheck and is a sure cure to droopy booby syndrome, you ought to have a chance to sell that idea to Americans, who will then get behind your cause. If your idea is so dumb that you have to read children’s books you’ve obviously never read before because you don’t have anything better to say, then the American people have a never-ending ability to point and laugh and they’ll use it.
Before you say my idea is too goofy, think about it. That’s the way it used to be and everything ain’t getting better just because we changed it. Look, the last filibuster was in 1964 when Senator Robert Byrd led a 14 hour filibuster against the Civil Right Act. It passed both houses on congress anyway. The good part is that Robert Byrd and Strom Thurman get to spend history as jackasses.
Keep the filibuster, just open it up so Americans can hear into that back smoked filled room where Mitch McConnell does whatever too-creepy-to-even-think-about thing he does.
I agree; I have been saying the same thing for years. I have a PhD in Government, so I’ve thought about it a bit, and this seems like the obvious solution to filibustering shutting everything down without removing the original minority-protection idea.
I have no idea why this idea doesn’t get more consideration.
1How about no bathroom breaks?
2Exactly! If you feel so strongly that you need to kibosh a bill that you can’t vote down, stand your ass up there and put in the work.
3Every cable channel does split screens; it would be easy to show. And now that corporate supporters are backing away from political giving, going on TV and making yourself look foolish might have an impact in your hip pocket. I say go for it!
4That might work, Ms. JJ. It would work better, if people like detesTed Crooze had a sense of shame. Or, if Moscow Mitch had a shred of decency to enforce Senate rules. <— rephrase that to mean fairly and without the usual "R" double standard.
It is a relief that Mitch's obstructionism won't be coming with the force of a majority gavel. May the stress of that give him "just enough" of a bleeding ulcer or whatever it takes to place retirement on his bucket list.
5Looking forward to Cruz reading the complete works of Dr. Seuss. In chronological order.
6The most sensible thing I have ever heard! I thought, while growing up, that is filibuster!
7I’d add one additional element … every 24 hours, there will be a Senate vote on continuing or constraining the speaker(s).
If the topic and the speaker is important, then there ought to be a willingness to show up and vote in favor. As soon as 3/5ths of those voting say “constrain,” the speaker gets a limited amount of time to wind up — 2 hours ought to be enough, as that is the amount of time allowed for debate on various nominations, including to lower level courts.
8Headline: Squad member Pressley: ‘Past time to end the Jim Crow Filibuster’
After the White House declined to weigh in on the filibuster debate Friday, Rep. Ayanna Pressley, didn’t mince words on where she stood. “It’s long past time to end the Jim Crow Filibuster,” the Massachusetts “Squad” member wrote on Twitter.
9I say no bathroom breaks – they can wear a Foley catheter and a leg bag if they really believe in their cause.
10One hundred percent with you, JJ.
11I remember when Lloyd Doggett was our State Senator. Whenever he walked into the Capitol carrying his sneakers, they knew they were in for a filibuster.
12The only problem I have with this idea is that it might be too easy, after we’ve stopped paying attention, to switch back to what they call a “filibuster” now.
Of course, if they got rid of it completely we’d still run the same risk.
OK, forget I said anything.
13Filibusters, like the draft, is good for democracy. And, like the draft, it has a cost to everyone involved. Want to start a war? Start drafting everyone. Want to stop legislation? Get up, and get talking. No breaks, no subs, no reading the damn phonebook.
You’d be surprised how quickly senators would realize that filibusters don’t work, and they’re not only a waste of time, they waste energy and make them look like whiners and worse. Same with drafting people, men and women, to fight a war. When it’s all volunteer, it’s just too damn easy, but if you have to dislodge the sons and daughters of the rich and powerful to go off and fight, maybe die, you’ll think twice, at least.
14What you say is entirely reasonable. If you don’t stand up and talk and hold the floor, it’s not a filibuster. I really don’t know how it morphed into this courtesy filibuster thing, but it needs to morph right back. And I’ve been saying this for a long long time. I think it’s nuts that the real filibuster ever went away.
15I agree 100%, JJ! The Senate needs the filibuster. It wouldn’t be the Senate without it. But for the minority leader to tell the majority leader at the beginning of a congressional session that s/he will need a 60% yes vote to pass any bill – any bill at all – does nothing but establish the tyranny of the minority.
Sometimes the minority is right, and they should have some way to limit/prevent the tyranny of the majority, but they shouldn’t be allowed to do it while doing nothing more than sitting on their dead heinies. At the very least, Mitch McTurtle should whistle so the rest of us will know which end is up.
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