Why The United States Needs The Filibuster
While it may be both clunky and inefficient, the filibuster is nonetheless crucial to ensuring deliberate legislating takes place in the U.S. Senate.
By Tripp Worley
August 6, 2020
At both the federal and the state level, the legislative process is glorified negotiation. The parties are always preoccupied with two things: advancing their agenda, then mirroring their platform just enough so their base reelects them.
Some legislation doesn’t need much negotiating, like the budget — since Congress just likes spending money. But the proposed laws that we see combated on television are not simple negotiations. They’re hyper-politically charged and thoroughly discussed in the House. The hottest debates happen in the Senate, however, where the vast majority of bills go to die. These dead bills owe their short lives to one thing, really: the filibuster.
In 1806 a rule change in Congress consequentially allowed for senators to obstruct the vote for a bill. To do this, all the senator has to do is take the floor and talk. As long as the senator keeps talking, the debate keeps going. If the debate goes long enough, the vote never happens and the bill bleeds out on Capitol Hill.
In recent decades, the filibuster been used more often. The Senate opted for a new procedure in 1970 that allowed for a filibuster to be “busted†when 60 senators agree to call for a vote. Effectively, this means that if a party wants a bill passed, they need more than a simple majority to do it.
more
https://thefederalist.com/2020/08/06/why-the-united-states-needs-the-filibuster/
