lpetrich
Contributor
The US Senate filibuster is an obstructionist tactic that Senators have accepted for well over a century. It consists of talking and talking and talking until one quits or else one's opponent quits. In recent decades, it has become a "hold" - a Senator only has to threaten to do the original kind of filibuster.
It's like the fake war between Eminiar VII and Vendikar in ST:TOS "A Taste of Armageddon". Those planets' inhabitants fight a fake war done by computer simulation, and they meekly report to disintegration chambers when tagged as casualties in it. They do so because they are afraid of starting a real war.
Currently, a filibuster can be ended only by a "cloture" vote with at least 60 Senators agreeing to shut it down. That is not quite as bad as what Poland had in early modern times, before its neighbors divided that nation between them. Its Sejm or parliament had a rule, the "liberum veto", where anyone could stop something by a negative vote, thus effectively requiring unanimity.
President Obama Is Right: To Save Our Democracy, End the Senate Filibuster by Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-OR.
The Founders wanted a simple majority, because they had experience with requiring more. About the US's first Constitution, the Articles of Confederation, 10 reasons why America’s first constitution failed - National Constitution Center - among them, requiring a supermajority of 9 out of 13 states: 69%.
It's like the fake war between Eminiar VII and Vendikar in ST:TOS "A Taste of Armageddon". Those planets' inhabitants fight a fake war done by computer simulation, and they meekly report to disintegration chambers when tagged as casualties in it. They do so because they are afraid of starting a real war.
Currently, a filibuster can be ended only by a "cloture" vote with at least 60 Senators agreeing to shut it down. That is not quite as bad as what Poland had in early modern times, before its neighbors divided that nation between them. Its Sejm or parliament had a rule, the "liberum veto", where anyone could stop something by a negative vote, thus effectively requiring unanimity.
President Obama Is Right: To Save Our Democracy, End the Senate Filibuster by Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-OR.
Arthur Schlesingers I and II had identified cycles of US history, where one tendency dominates and then the other tendency dominates.The history of America is one of struggle between those who want our democracy to represent the many, and those who would prefer it only to represent the privileged and powerful few.
Emancipation, the 14th and 15th amendments, the right of women and Native Americans to vote, the 1964 Civil Rights Act, the 1965 Voting Rights Act—all of these were major victories for the many. But for the last several decades, the powerful few have been working diligently and successfully to reverse this progress.
They have wiped voters from the rolls by the tens of thousands. They have passed discriminatory voter ID laws and closed polling stations. They have drowned our elections in dark money and expanded gerrymandering. They have stolen a Supreme Court seat and packed the Court, successfully gutting the Voting Rights Act that John Lewis bled for.
And they have clung to the vestiges of disenfranchisement that still exist in our system—the undemocratic Electoral College and the lack of representation for American citizens who live in D.C. and the territories.
All of these actions have undermined government of, by, and for the people, silencing the voices of the many to accentuate the power of the few. And, in the worst tradition of America’s exclusionary and racist history, they disproportionately disenfranchised Americans who were young, low-income, disabled, and people of color—especially Black Americans.
The Founders wanted a simple majority, because they had experience with requiring more. About the US's first Constitution, the Articles of Confederation, 10 reasons why America’s first constitution failed - National Constitution Center - among them, requiring a supermajority of 9 out of 13 states: 69%.