# 60 votes to pass bills in the US Senate?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/60-votes-to-pass-bills-in-the-us-senate/564643
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [December 18, 2010, 7:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/60-votes-to-pass-bills-in-the-us-senate/564643 "2010-12-18T19:22:56Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@AWB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AWB)
#### Post date: [December 18, 2010, 7:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/60-votes-to-pass-bills-in-the-us-senate/564643/1 "2010-12-18T19:22:56Z")
In regards to the [Senate Blocks DADT](http://www.npr.org/2010/12/10/131933772/house-democrats-balk-at-deal-on-taxes?sc=fb&cc=fp) story: The story mentions that it takes 60 votes to advance a bill; i.e., to send it to the other house. Since when?
I thought it was a simple majority (51 or more) to pass bills. If this has changed, is the purpose of the vice president in the Senate completely moot now?
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### Author:  [@etv78](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/etv78)
#### Post date: [December 18, 2010, 7:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/60-votes-to-pass-bills-in-the-us-senate/564643/2 "2010-12-18T19:25:44Z")
You need 60 to break a filibuster.
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### Author:  [@Uncertain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Uncertain)
#### Post date: [December 18, 2010, 7:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/60-votes-to-pass-bills-in-the-us-senate/564643/3 "2010-12-18T19:29:33Z")
Senate rules (not the Constitution) require 60 votes to end debate and vote on the bill.
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### Author:  [@etv78](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/etv78)
#### Post date: [December 18, 2010, 7:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/60-votes-to-pass-bills-in-the-us-senate/564643/4 "2010-12-18T19:34:40Z")
Filibuster is a stalling tactic in Senate to prevent vote on a bill, and you need 60 votes to put a halt to it (called cloture). As Uncertain said, it doesn’t appear in the Constitution, but became a Senate rule, much abused in recent years.
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### Author:  [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)
#### Post date: [December 18, 2010, 7:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/60-votes-to-pass-bills-in-the-us-senate/564643/5 "2010-12-18T19:51:56Z")
It takes a majority of Senators present to pass bills; that is true.
WHat the 60-vote threshold is about is that Senate rules allow for unlimited debate unless ended by a cloture vote, and this has always been used by Senators to permit filibusters, i.e., one or a minority of Senators refusing to allow an issue they particularly object to, to be brought to a vote, by continuing to debate it indefinitely. Under Senate rules, it takes a 3/5 supermajority to impose cloture and end debate.
Not to get partisan but to clarify for those still confused, the Republicans have in recent years used the _threat of_ a filibuster to prevent passage of a wide range of issues they disagree with, unless 61 votes can be brought to bear to impose cloture.
Up until all this got to be standard procedure, the right to conduct a one-man filibuster on an issue of particular importance to an individual Senator was a precious tradition of the Senate, not to be overridden lightly – they saw it as a way to prevent the “tyranny of the majority”, to be used sparingly but as a way for a single Senator to stop something he is absolutely opposed to. That may now change.
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### Author:  [@elmwood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elmwood)
#### Post date: [December 18, 2010, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/60-votes-to-pass-bills-in-the-us-senate/564643/6 "2010-12-18T20:17:15Z")
Thus, the unofficial rule where when the Senate is controlled by Democrats, a 60 vote majority is needed, while for a Republican controlled Senate, only 51 votes are required.
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### Author:  [@etv78](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/etv78)
#### Post date: [December 18, 2010, 8:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/60-votes-to-pass-bills-in-the-us-senate/564643/7 "2010-12-18T20:27:41Z")
> [@elmwood](#):
>
> Thus, the unofficial rule where when the Senate is controlled by Democrats, a 60 vote majority is needed, while for a Republican controlled Senate, only 51 votes are required.
As elmwood gets partisan on us! :rolleyes:
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### Author:  [@friedo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/friedo)
#### Post date: [December 18, 2010, 9:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/60-votes-to-pass-bills-in-the-us-senate/564643/8 "2010-12-18T21:32:54Z")
> [@elmwood](#):
>
> Thus, the unofficial rule where when the Senate is controlled by Democrats, a 60 vote majority is needed, while for a Republican controlled Senate, only 51 votes are required.
Democrats are just as guilty of abusing the cloture rule as Republicans have been.
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### Author:  [@Simplicio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Simplicio)
#### Post date: [December 18, 2010, 9:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/60-votes-to-pass-bills-in-the-us-senate/564643/9 "2010-12-18T21:48:09Z")
> [@friedo](#):
>
> Democrats are just as guilty of abusing the cloture rule as Republicans have been.
[Here’s the number of cloture votes as a function of time](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/newreply.php?do=newreply&p=13266017). There’s a pretty well defined upswing when the GOP moves to the minority in '06.
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### Author:  [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)
#### Post date: [December 18, 2010, 10:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/60-votes-to-pass-bills-in-the-us-senate/564643/10 "2010-12-18T22:00:24Z")
> [@elmwood](#):
>
> Thus, the unofficial rule where when the Senate is controlled by Democrats, a 60 vote majority is needed, while for a Republican controlled Senate, only 51 votes are required.
> [@etv78](#):
>
> As elmwood gets partisan on us! :rolleyes:
> [@friedo](#):
>
> Democrats are just as guilty of abusing the cloture rule as Republicans have been.
[Moderator Note]
Let’s avoid the partisan commentary. No warnings issued.
Colibri
General Questions Moderator
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### Author:  [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)
#### Post date: [December 18, 2010, 10:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/60-votes-to-pass-bills-in-the-us-senate/564643/11 "2010-12-18T22:00:50Z")
> [@Simplicio](#):
>
> [Here’s the number of cloture votes as a function of time](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/newreply.php?do=newreply&p=13266017). There’s a pretty well defined upswing when the GOP moves to the minority in '06.
Your link goes to a “new reply” screen.
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### Author:  [@etv78](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/etv78)
#### Post date: [December 18, 2010, 10:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/60-votes-to-pass-bills-in-the-us-senate/564643/12 "2010-12-18T22:06:40Z")
> [@Simplicio](#):
>
> [Here’s the number of cloture votes as a function of time](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/newreply.php?do=newreply&p=13266017). There’s a pretty well defined upswing when the GOP moves to the minority in '06.
Your link doesn’t go anywhere. Ninja’d!
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### Author:  [@Simplicio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Simplicio)
#### Post date: [December 18, 2010, 10:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/60-votes-to-pass-bills-in-the-us-senate/564643/13 "2010-12-18T22:32:40Z")
> [@Colibri](#):
>
> Your link goes to a “new reply” screen.
[Trying again](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Cloture_Voting,_United_States_Senate,_1947_to_2008.svg)
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### Author:  [@alphaboi867](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alphaboi867)
#### Post date: [December 18, 2010, 10:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/60-votes-to-pass-bills-in-the-us-senate/564643/14 "2010-12-18T22:52:54Z")
> [@Polycarp](#):
>
> …Up until all this got to be standard procedure, the right to conduct a one-man filibuster on an issue of particular importance to an individual Senator was a precious tradition of the Senate, not to be overridden lightly – they saw it as a way to prevent the “tyranny of the majority”, to be used sparingly but as a way for a single Senator to stop something he is absolutely opposed to. That may now change.
Yep, the traditional filibuster required the Senator who placed it to hold the floor and talk continuously for hours (days) on end. During which time the Senate could literely do _nothing_ else and a quorum had to be maintained at all hours of the day and night. That’s why they were so rare; they created a public spectacle and made it impossible for any other work to get done.
Then the rules were changed so that the Senator placing the filibuster doesn’t need to hold the floor and the Senate could go on working on other stuff. This is why filibusters (or the threat of one) have become so common and why in practice it takes 60 votes to pass ordinary legislation.
Normally it takes a 2/3rds majority for the Senate to change it’s rules, but on the very first day of the session (when the usually just redopt the rules from the last session pro forma) it only takes a simple majority. The filibuster reform that the Democrats are proposing is to revert to traditional filibuster practice which would make filibusters alot harder and hence rarer.
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### Author:  [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)
#### Post date: [December 19, 2010, 12:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/60-votes-to-pass-bills-in-the-us-senate/564643/15 "2010-12-19T00:09:51Z")
Under a traditional filibuster they had to hold the floor continuously, but it did not have to be one person. I believe the practice is that the Senator who began the filibuster can pause (without yielding the floor) to answer questions from other Senators. The Senator asking the question would usually start with, “Thank you, my question is in four-hundred and fourteen parts, and may take a considerable amount of time to ask, so feel free to have a seat while I ask it.” They could thus daisy-chain it indefinitely as long as they had enough Senators.
It actually used to be that cloture didn’t exist, also. It was originally set at something higher than it is currently (maybe 66), when cloture first came about. Prior to that one Senator could literally hold up the entire Senate and it had no recourse save waiting for him to fall over unconscious. Over time it has been lowered to 60.
I’ve long said that a filibuster needs to _be_ a filibuster. If something is really worth fighting for from a position of minority, the rules of the Senate should make it grueling and difficult. This “filibuster by agreement” is horrible, and I say that as a die hard Republican.
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### Author:  [@etv78](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/etv78)
#### Post date: [December 19, 2010, 12:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/60-votes-to-pass-bills-in-the-us-senate/564643/16 "2010-12-19T00:26:20Z")
IMO, the only filibusterable (channelling Moica Gellar-“That’s not even a word!”) things should be Judicial nominees and treaties.
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### Author:  [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)
#### Post date: [December 19, 2010, 12:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/60-votes-to-pass-bills-in-the-us-senate/564643/17 "2010-12-19T00:41:03Z")
> [@elmwood](#):
>
> Thus, the unofficial rule where when the Senate is controlled by Democrats, a 60 vote majority is needed, while for a Republican controlled Senate, only 51 votes are required.
That’s a bit tendentious. The Dems have filibustered in the past and will in the future. There was a threat to break the rule over confirmation of Supreme Court justices, but the Dems caved on that one. They came within a hair of ending the filibuster rule for confirmation cases. The idea would be that the Vice-President, who is the president of the Senate, would rule the filibuster out of order because the Senate is required to confirm or deny an appointment. There would be an appeal and then a vote (an appeal of a ruling of the chair is not debatable, I believe) and, poof, there goes the filibuster rule for that specific situation.
The Dems caved rather than see the end of the filibuster.
Originally, the rule was there (or, to put it more precisely, the abandonment of the “previous question” rule that allows a non-debatable vote on whether to vote without further debate on the previous question (i.e. the one that was being debated)) was there at the insistence of the south which wanted to be able to effectively block any motion that would interfere with slavery.
In my memory, it took 67 votes to end debate. Actually, it took 2/3 of those present and voting. With a great deal of effort this was lowered to 60 (no matter how many voted, I think), but any motion to lower that number would still need 2/3.
There is, in principle, another way to end filibuster. This would have the added advantage of putting Glen Beck into orbit. That would be, when the senate organizes in January for the VP to declare that the senate has no rules and has to vote on what its rules are. The House does this every two years but the Senate has always taken the attitude that it is a continuing body that has no need to adopt rules. If the VP ruled otherwise, then there would be an appeal and the 53 Dems could uphold the VP. Obviously it would all have to be arranged beforehand. Then there would be debate on the new rules, but again the VP could allow the motion of the previous question.
Even over the civil rights bills in the 60s, the Reps did not filibuster. Maybe because they foresaw (Lyndon Johnson certainly did) that it would give their party a solid south. And so it has largely turned out. But in recent years it has been used increasingly for ordinary opposition, rather then as an extraordinary device to be used only in extremis.
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### Author:  [@etv78](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/etv78)
#### Post date: [December 19, 2010, 1:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/60-votes-to-pass-bills-in-the-us-senate/564643/18 "2010-12-19T01:04:04Z")
> [@Hari\_Seldon](#):
>
> .Even over the civil rights bills in the 60s, the Reps did not filibuster. Maybe because they foresaw (Lyndon Johnson certainly did) that it would give their party a solid south. And so it has largely turned out. But in recent years it has been used increasingly for ordinary opposition, rather then as an extraordinary device to be used only in extremis.
The longest filibuster in history was over a 1960’s era Civil Rights bill.
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### Author:  [@AlsoNamedBort](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AlsoNamedBort)
#### Post date: [December 19, 2010, 1:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/60-votes-to-pass-bills-in-the-us-senate/564643/19 "2010-12-19T01:26:44Z")
> [@alphaboi867](#):
>
> Then the rules were changed so that the Senator placing the filibuster doesn’t need to hold the floor and the Senate could go on working on other stuff. This is why filibusters (or the threat of one) have become so common and why in practice it takes 60 votes to pass ordinary legislation.
How exactly does a filibuster work now? When they decide to vote on something, does a Senator just go “Nuh-uh, I’m filibustering.”?
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### Author:  [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)
#### Post date: [December 19, 2010, 2:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/60-votes-to-pass-bills-in-the-us-senate/564643/20 "2010-12-19T02:16:22Z")
Simplicio has a nice chart. Here’s another one, showing the spike in filibusters after 2007, when the Dems first attained majority in the Senate.
> **[The filibuster: let's talk about it](https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2009/12/the-filibuster-lets-talk-about-it/32384/)**
>
> The Atlantic covers news, politics, culture, technology, health, and more, through its articles, podcasts, videos, and flagship magazine.
The chart, btw, was designed by the conservative American Enterprise Institute. That the Republicans have been innovators in curbing majority rule in the Senate is widely acknowledged by reasonable observers. [http://www.american.com/archive/2008/march-april-magazine-contents/our-broken-senate](http://www.american.com/archive/2008/march-april-magazine-contents/our-broken-senate)
The filibuster is only one aspect of Senatorial dysfunction. Individual Senators can put “Holds” on appointees to the Executive Branch. This was done routinely in 2009-2010, possibly to lower the Obama administration’s operational effectiveness. Or perhaps to pursue one Senator’s narrow objectives, as shown by the example of John Kyl:
> [@wiki](#):
>
> In September 2006, working with then-Congressman Jim Leach, Jon Kyl was a major Senate supporter of Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006. The Act was passed at midnight the day Congress adjourned before the 2006 elections. Prior to it being added to the bill, the gambling provisions had not been debated by any Congressional committee, although the general issue had been debated in multiple times in the past.[19] When the Obama administration delayed publication of the associated regulations until June 2010, **Kyl responded by denying unanimous consent to confirm the appointment of 6 nominees to the US Treasury Department, none of whom specialized on gambling issues.** [20]
Emphasis added\*. John Kyl blocked these appointees to the Dept of Treasury following the worst financial crisis in post-war history. Paul Volker disapproved: Former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker touched on this in a recent interview with Charlie Rose. “Here we are on Dec. 29, almost a year after the Inauguration, and there is no Under Secretary of the Treasury. That should be an important position. How can we run a government in the middle of a financial crisis without doing the ordinary, garden-variety administrative work of filling the relevant agencies?” he asked. Brad DeLong also noticed the problem, calling the lack of confirmations at Treasury “disgraceful and insane.” [http://wonkroom.thinkprogress.org/2010/01/08/kyl-treasury-holds/](http://wonkroom.thinkprogress.org/2010/01/08/kyl-treasury-holds/)
Kyl dropped this block on Feb 15, 2010, after Obama threatened to just make the appointments during an upcoming Senate recess.
- Full disclosure: I penned the first draft of that sentence almost a year ago.
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