Talking Bills to Death

As you saw in today's film, one of the more unique congressional practices is the Senate filibuster, or the provision that allows senators (acting individually or as a team) to obstruct legislative proceedings by speaking for as long as they're able and willing to keep at it. In 1917, the Senate implemented a "cloture rule," which provides for terminating a filibuster if 2/3 of the Senate votes to do so. Such supermajorities are very difficult to achieve, though, especially in today's day and age when congressional majorities tend to hinge on just a handful of seats.

Mr. Smith Goes to Washington predates the longest individual filibuster in the U.S. Senate by nearly 20 years. In 1957, the late South Carolina Senator Strom Thurmond held the floor for 24 hours and 18 minutes to (ultimately unsuccessfully) prevent passage of a civil rights bill. Thurmond's filibuster ended on his own accord once it became clear that the other southern senators weren't going to help him out (this TIME magazine article from September 1957 explains what happened). In contrast, it took a close cloture vote to end the group filibuster that was mounted to obstruct the more famous Civil Rights Act of 1964.

A couple of years ago, the filibuster was brought to the forefront of political debate once again when a bunch of Senate Democrats made use of the practice to hold up President Bush's conservative judicial appointments. The Daily Show clip below pokes fun at the showdown, but serious questions remain: Is the filibuster rule a threat to American democracy and the separation of powers system? Should it be kept as is, reformed, or done away with altogether?