# Time to eliminate Senate filibusters?

**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/time-to-eliminate-senate-filibusters/491756
**Category:** Great Debates
**Created:** [April 2, 2009, 8:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/time-to-eliminate-senate-filibusters/491756 "2009-04-02T20:12:34Z")
**Posts on this page:** 1
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### Author: ![Fish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/bc8723/32.png) [@Fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fish)
#### Post date: [April 2, 2009, 8:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/time-to-eliminate-senate-filibusters/491756/4 "2009-04-02T20:20:02Z")

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I wouldn’t be opposed to removing the _procedural filibuster_, which as I understand it means “we declare we have enough votes that we’ll threaten to allow this filibuster on this subject if you don’t capitulate, but we won’t _actually_ jeopardize any of our Senators’ reputations by making them do the dirty work of _actually_, in fact, conducting a filibuster.”

In other words: nobody wants to _look bad on TV._ They want all the power of the filibuster without any of the sacrifice: namely, standing up in Congress and reading from the dictionary and _visibly_ commit to bringing government to a halt.

I can see getting rid of that. The procedural filibuster is like _threatening_ to bell the cat.

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