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| Filbuster - American as Apple Pie; or, tyrrany by the minority? | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Dec 4 2005, 08:53 AM (299 Views) | |
| George K | Dec 4 2005, 08:53 AM Post #1 |
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Finally
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(Copied from another thread) A question: Do you really think that filibuster is a legitimate way of passing, or rejecting legislation? Put aside the romantic Jimmy Stewart images and look at the process. It is a way of the minority party to obstruct the wishes of the majority, no? Not taking sides on Dems vs. Reps or Conservatives vs. Liberals. Just wondering, out loud, how "democratic" the process of filibuster really is. I remember Republicans doing it and I thought it was a cheap way of getting their voices heard in a Democratic congress. I feel the same way now. |
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A guide to GKSR: Click "Now look here, you Baltic gas passer... " - Mik, 6/14/08 Nothing is as effective as homeopathy. I'd rather listen to an hour of Abba than an hour of The Beatles. - Klaus, 4/29/18 | |
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| Rick Zimmer | Dec 4 2005, 09:09 AM Post #2 |
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Fulla-Carp
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Ahhh, George. You beat me to it. Here is what I put in the thread I started on this topic -- which I will vacate of comment to keep the discussion focused. Yes, I think it is a legitimate legislative tactic in our system of government, even though it is often used for less than high-minded purposes. I think we can be readily assured that politicians as a group will, more often than not, act in their own self-interest and will seldom act out of a deeper sense of purpose. Politicians are more often whores than they are statesmen. Somehow the system needs to allow for a higher purpose to be focused on and protected. Our entire system was designed to make it hard for the majority to run amock. It also was never intended to have political parties that could rally their members and intimidate, if not force, their members to vote against what they individually may feel is in the best interest of the nation. Thus the need for some sort of mechanism to allow for the less-than-popular, but perhaps appropriate interests to be forced to be debated. Keep in mind, the filibuster as now practiced can be easily stopped with a closure vote of 60 senators. It does not stop enactment of a law; it just demands that the issue be given greater scrutiny and that the majority party be able to sway a few members of the opposition party to their way of thinking. I do not believe this is too much of a requirements when a minority, even a small minority of one, believes strongly in their position and demands that the politicians actually think before they adopt something. Forcing compromise and joint action by member of both parties is not a bad thing in a system built around the idea of checks and balances when there are those who believe an issue is important enough to demand such action. If we did not have political parties with all of the attendent power such parties have to intimidate and impose their will on their members and if all legislators were truly free to vote in accordance with their conscience and their belief of the nation's good, then perhaps we would not need the filibuster. But most legislators do not have the cajones to do this. When there are some who do, the syetem should slow down, listen and take this seriously. This is all the filibuster does and is, in my opinion, a good thing. |
| [size=4]Violence is incompatible with the nature of God and the nature of the soul -- Benedict XVI[/size] | |
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| Rick Zimmer | Dec 4 2005, 09:20 AM Post #3 |
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Fulla-Carp
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Moved from the other thread...
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| [size=4]Violence is incompatible with the nature of God and the nature of the soul -- Benedict XVI[/size] | |
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| Rick Zimmer | Dec 4 2005, 09:22 AM Post #4 |
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Fulla-Carp
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Moved from the other thread...
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| [size=4]Violence is incompatible with the nature of God and the nature of the soul -- Benedict XVI[/size] | |
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| Rick Zimmer | Dec 4 2005, 09:23 AM Post #5 |
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Fulla-Carp
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Moved from the other thread:
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| [size=4]Violence is incompatible with the nature of God and the nature of the soul -- Benedict XVI[/size] | |
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| Rick Zimmer | Dec 4 2005, 09:30 AM Post #6 |
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Fulla-Carp
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But the point, George, was not to debate the cook book. The point was to stop debate and force a debate that the rest of the Senate was not prepared to have and then to force a higher majority of a vote to get the legislation passed. While I certainly did not agree with Thurmond and a host of other Southerners who used this tactic to protect a system which should never have even develoeped in America, the system could have been eliminated long before if the Democrats, at the time, had done what they should have done on numerous occasions but refused to do just to maintain their hold on the Solid South. As for the need for nine additional votes form the opposition, keep in mind that is the worst case scenario occuring only when the Senate is almost evenly divided. Usually the majority has more than 51 votes and hence the number needed from the opposition is far less than nine. It is not that many votes, if the issue is that important and is not something that is being rammed down the throats of the Senators. |
| [size=4]Violence is incompatible with the nature of God and the nature of the soul -- Benedict XVI[/size] | |
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| George K | Dec 4 2005, 09:34 AM Post #7 |
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Finally
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From Wiki: Seems we're not the only ones. In a legislature or other decision making body, a filibuster is an attempt to obstruct a particular decision from being taken by using up the time available, typically through an extremely long speech. The term first came into use in the United States Senate, where Senate rules permit a senator, or a series of senators, to speak for as long as they wish and on any topic they choose. The term comes from the early 17th century, where Buccaneers were known in England as filibusters. This term had evolved from the Spanish filibustero which had come from the French word flibustier, which again evolved from the Dutch vrijbuiter (freebooter). A similar form of parliamentary obstruction practiced in the United States and other countries is called "slow walking". It specifically refers to the extremely slow speed with which legislators walk to the podium to cast their ballots. For example, in Japan this tactic is known as a "cow walk". In general it refers to the intentional delay of the normal business of the legislature and Under Senate rules, the speech need not be relevant to the topic under discussion, and there have been cases in which a senator has undertaken part of a speech by reading from a telephone directory. Senator Strom Thurmond (D-SC) set a record in 1957 by filibustering the Civil Rights Act of 1957 for 24 hours and 18 minutes, although the bill ultimately passed. Thurmond broke the previous record of 22 hours and 26 minutes set by Wayne Morse (I-OR) in 1953 protesting the Tidelands Oil legislation. Preparations for a filibuster can be elaborate. Sometimes cots are brought into the hallways or cloakrooms for senators to sleep on. According to Newsweek, "They used to call it 'taking to the diaper,' a phrase that referred to the preparation undertaken by a prudent senator before an extended filibuster ... Strom Thurmond visited a steam room before his filibuster in order to dehydrate himself so he could drink without urinating. An aide stood by in the cloakroom with a pail in case of emergency." Filibusters have become much more common in recent decades. Twice as many filibusters took place in the 1991-1992 legislative session as in the entire nineteenth century. (Frozen Republic, p.198) Doesn't it all make the participants look, well, foolish? Here are these pompous blowhards, talking about the "Business of Government" and they become cartoonish caricatures of legislators who can't agree to talk about something! |
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A guide to GKSR: Click "Now look here, you Baltic gas passer... " - Mik, 6/14/08 Nothing is as effective as homeopathy. I'd rather listen to an hour of Abba than an hour of The Beatles. - Klaus, 4/29/18 | |
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| Rick Zimmer | Dec 4 2005, 09:47 AM Post #8 |
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Fulla-Carp
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It is not so much that they can't agree to talk about something, it is that they want to take the easy way out. And yes, at times they look silly. But as with so much of our Constitutional provisions, it seems silly, but what it really is doing is recognizing human nature. Does it really make sense that the President is Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces but only the Congress can order them to war? Does it make sense that a President, the only popularly elected offical (except the VP) of the entire country cannot enact the laws he wants on his own that he promised the people who elected him to enact? Does it make sense that the Judicial Branch can interpret the laws, but the legislative branch and executive branch can stop funding the Courts in retaliation? The genius of the Constitution is that it starts with a sound governmental theory but then recognizes how human beings work when they have power and places roadblocks in their way to demand that the theory play out. The only reason the American Constitution works is because it is both high minded and eminently pragmatic about human nature and people in power. The filibuster is, to me, just an extension of this. |
| [size=4]Violence is incompatible with the nature of God and the nature of the soul -- Benedict XVI[/size] | |
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| George K | Dec 4 2005, 10:15 AM Post #9 |
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No question, the framers were brilliant - and having read some of the debates that they had, I can assure you that few of us here appreciate how brilliant they were. I am struck by the originality of the entire concept of the government that we have. Nothing, nothing had ever been tried before in the history of the planet. Checks and balances? Commander in Chief, but without the power to declare war? Stunning. However, the filibuster is not (IMHO) one of those brilliances. It appears nowhere in the Constitution. It is simply an agreement of some guys that "here's how we're going to play this game." I wonder how Adams and Jefferson would have looked upon it. BTW: Your American History Trivia of the Day. Jefferson and Adams died on the same day, July 4th, 1826 - 50 years to the day after the publication of the Declaration. On his deathbed, Jefferson said, "Is it the Fourth?" and passed on about 2 hours later. On his deathbed (about 6 hours after that) Adams said, "Jefferson Lives." |
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A guide to GKSR: Click "Now look here, you Baltic gas passer... " - Mik, 6/14/08 Nothing is as effective as homeopathy. I'd rather listen to an hour of Abba than an hour of The Beatles. - Klaus, 4/29/18 | |
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| George K | Dec 4 2005, 10:29 AM Post #10 |
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Here's the New York Times in 1995: "Time to retire the filibuster." The U.S. Senate likes to call itself the world's greatest deliberative body. The greatest obstructive body is more like it. In the last season of Congress, the Republican minority invoked an endless string of filibusters to frustrate the will of the majority. This relentless abuse of a time-honored Senate tradition so disgusted Senator Tom Harkin, a Democrat from Iowa, that he is now willing to forgo easy retribution and drastically limit the filibuster. Hooray for him. |
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A guide to GKSR: Click "Now look here, you Baltic gas passer... " - Mik, 6/14/08 Nothing is as effective as homeopathy. I'd rather listen to an hour of Abba than an hour of The Beatles. - Klaus, 4/29/18 | |
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| Rick Zimmer | Dec 4 2005, 11:04 AM Post #11 |
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Fulla-Carp
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I disagree with that. I think we would see that same editorial from differing political perspectives depending on which party cannot get its policies adopted. To me, the fact the filibuster cuts both ways depending on who is in power is one of the reasons it works and is a good thing. I certainly will not defend every use of the filibuster and I know very well it is often used for purely partisan reasons -- perhaps even most of the time. But I think it is an important bump in the road especially at a time when the country is so polarized and the politics is so extreme on both sides. Do we really want major policy shifts made by an unpopular President, a highly partisan and severely disciplined party system in the House and the barest of majorities in the Senate? If one were to consider the percentage of laws that get filibustered compared toi those that are passed and sent to the President, one would realize how really seldom the filibuster is used. It hardly is stopping the business of government. It is almost always used when there are severe disagreements on legislation. And when that occurs, let the majority party be forced to pick up a few votes from the minority party. If their ideas are that good for the country and that well accepted by the electorate, they will be able to get those votes. If it is not important enough to them to fight for the cloture vote or they are unable to do so, then is it really bad if their policy is not adopted and they have to re-write the legislation to take out the offending portions? |
| [size=4]Violence is incompatible with the nature of God and the nature of the soul -- Benedict XVI[/size] | |
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4:52 PM Jul 10