The recent filibuster to keep a Bush judicial nominee from a position got me thinking about this. What exactly do they talk about? Is this kind of stuff on C-SPAN? They can just talk about anything, but is there a place where I can read what they say? Do the senators just talk about stupid stuff and what kind of stupid stuff in particular?
The article I read didn’t mention anything that was said. The article did say that Strom Thurmond filibustered (?) for ~24 hours to keep the civil rights bill from passing; I can’t imagine he talked about that one bill for an entire day.
They changed the rules in the 1970s, so that “filibustering” is no longer someone standing around on the floor, talking to prevent anything else from happening. Nowadays, it’s a more bureaucratic thing, where whatever issue is being filibustered is put aside but they can still do other stuff.
The Senate has very few rules limiting debate, so a senator is permitted to talk about pretty much anything he wants.
Huey Long once gave a lecture on making pot liquor.
Sometimes senators have read at length from a book, much as Jimmy Stewart did in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington; there is a scene where he reads from The New Testament in a hoarse voice.
While I cannot comment on rule changes made in the 1970s, the procedure today appears to be similar. Last week or the week before the National Public Radio show All Things Considered played a brief excerpt from Senator Robert Byrd’s recent contribution to the current filibuster. He was telling the pages in the room about how, as a boy, he first endeared himself to his future wife by sharing his bubble gum.
The ability of a particularly eloquent (or merely long-winded) person to speak at length on a given subject can be staggering.
Clarence Darrow spoke for two days (that is, for as long as court was in session on two consecutive days), when arguing against the death penalty for Leopold and Loeb.
IIRC, Daniel Webster argued the government’s side in McCullough vs. Maryland for two days before the Supreme Court, and without notes. At present attorneys are limited to one hour.
It should be said though that, for the most part, senators do talk about the matter at hand. Though they certainly don’t have to, and old-style senators like Byrd will often talk about whatever they fancy. It’s actually those kind of moments that make the whole thing entertaining.
Sadly, the filibuster done by Jefferson Smith in “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington” isn’t possible anymore. Senate rules now allow a 3/5 majority of the chamber to invoke cloture, which limits all debate thereafter to 30 hours. Strom Thurmond is one of the reasons that happened: To stop one contrarian from blocking a bill that has WIDE support otherwise.
In fact, the Senate just failed to invoke cloture today on the debate cited in the OP. So the Democratic filibuster continues, though now mostly behind closed doors.
Actually, the informal definition was expanded to include the “bureaucratic thing” to which JerH refers and which is being used to block the Estrada confirmation, but a Senator can still grab and hold control of the Senate floor for as long as he can stand. There are few rules as to what topics can or cannot be discussed. Jimmy Stewart’s filibuster in Mr. Smith is a highly unusual case because he has no co-conspirators with which to continue the debate.
In the case of the Estrada filibuster, there are a number of aligned Senators who are handing off the floor to one another. For example, in the week before the President’s Day break, 80-something Sen. Robert Byrd snagged the floor and held it for an entire morning, delivering an impassioned (some might say “blustering”) speech (some might say “fulmination”) against the impending war on Iraq which spanned four pages in the abovementioned Congressional Record–well over five thousand words. He returned to related issues on the 12th and the 13th of February. For awhile there, C-SPAN began to look like The Robert Byrd Show.
Incidentally, while Thurmond holds the record for his nearly day-long monologue blocking the Civil Rights Act, it was Byrd who wrapped up a fourteen-hour speech only to discover that the Democrats had assembled a cloture vote ending the nearly two-month long debate.
The cloture rule was instituted in 1918, in reaction to a 1917 filibuster which killed a widely supported bill to allow the Wilson administration to arm merchant ships on the eve of World War I. It provided for cloture by a 2/3 majority, which was changed to 3/5 in 1975.
However, one Senator can still hold the floor indefinitely. A cloture motion cannot interrupt the speaker. This was the scenario presented in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.
Isn’t it true that in order for that to happen, the lone Senator must continue talking indefinately, without sitting down or leaning on anything or touching another person?
The Senate bills itself as the world’s greatest deliberative body, largely because of its tradition of unlimited debate–unlimited in time, and unlimited in topic. A senator may speak for as long as he or she wants, on any topic that he or she wants, as long as the senator holds the floor continuously–that is, he or she cannot leave the chamber, or take his or her seat, or pause. (Although the filibustering senator can manage a break by making certain motions, such as a quorum call, without relinquishing the floor. I don’t know about “without … touching another person.”) A filibuster takes maximum advantage of that tradition. For example, when southern senators opposed civil-rights legislation in the 1950s, they sometimes spoke around the clock. The filibuster prevents a vote on the question before the Senate, and blocks any other significant business from coming forward, so that no legislation or nomination can pass while a filibuster is underway. The filibuster usually continues until the other side, the senators who support the question being filibustered, agrees to a compromise or delay, or drops the matter in order to break the logjam.
I’m not so sure about that. It seems true that a Senator cannot sit down, because it would be construed as relinquishing control of the floor. But unless touching someone else is “conduct unbecoming” of a Senator, it’s not explicitly forbidden in the Rules. Since you paid for it, here is the entire chapter on debate:
It seems the only way to get a Senator to shut up is to either trick him into taking his seat or to call him to order for either a) talking shit about another Senator; b) talking shit about a State; or c) directing the attention of the Senate to the visitors in the galleries.
That last item brings up an interesting possibility for breaking a filibuster… “And as you can see here on page 432 of Atlas Shrugged–huh? Just what in the hell is that couple doing up there?”
Does anyone know what the record is for the longest filibuster performed by one man? Also, does that mean no one is allowed to leave until the filibuster is over, even if it takes 24 or 48 hours (or more)?
I’m almost positive that pretty much no one is there during a filibuster. There’s no real debate going on, and the Senate is hardly ever full, anyway.
We get this idea that it’s full from seeing the president deliver State of the Union speeches. It’s not. Almost all of the congressional work is done off the floor. Even when there’s a vote, they have a time frame to work in. They come in, swipe their official “I’m a senator” card, IIRC, and lodge a vote. Then they probably leave.
From the U.S. Senate website (don’t let the caption mislead you):
(Emphasis added.) For more information about Senator Thurmond’s filibuster, google “longest filibuster.” He was speaking against the Civil Rights Act of 1957, which is perhaps why the Senate’s website highlights Morse’s earlier, shorter filibuster and barely mentions Thurmond’s record-setting performance.
Waaaaaaay back, when I was in high school, I wrote a satiric piece about the long-departed “Washingtonian Empire” , in which I described the filibuster as “a horrible torture by which a senator was made to stand for as long as he spoke.”