How to stop filibusters in the senate

by David Grand
May 12, 2005

Lace whatever the filibustering senator is drinking with ptomaine poison, as was done to the glass of milk and egg that Wisconsin Senator Robert La Follete drank during his all-night filibuster against a currency bill in 1908. It didn't kill him, but it sure shut him up.       

But that didn't deter Sen. Huey "kingfish" Long (D-Louisiana) from using the filibuster to stall passage of FDR's, New Deal measures, who rambled on for 15 hours on recipes for oysters, "potlikker" and the life of Frederick the Great.      

 Or Sen. Strom Thurmond (R- South Carolina), who set the record for filibusters, by ranting for 24 hours against the Civil Rights Act of 1957. (Sen John Calhoun, who hailed from the same state must've been cheering him on from his grave, who used it in 1841 to defend slavery.)      

Nor Sen. Robert Byrd (D-West Virginia), ex-Klansman from  filibustering for 14 hours against the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964, which he says he regrets doing.       

And I'll never forget that movie "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington," starring Jimmy Stewart as an idealistic, small town man who becomes a senator. I can still visualize him worn to a frazzle as he attempts a single-handed filibuster against charges of senatorial misconduct.  (Doubtful, he'd be able to mount a filibuster in today's climate).

The Senate is, as the founding fathers intended it to be the "deliberative body," where floor debate is quiet and even leisurely compared to the House, and where an informal code of conduct is suppose to prevent senators from insulting one another. So much for observing that code, and upholding the senate's "colligate" atmosphere in this session, where civility has been replaced with rancor.     

Now, neither party can claim the high road in the debate over filibusters, guilty as they both are of being two-faced and having a short memory span. The Republicans say they want an up or down vote on seven, appeals court nominees because, as  Sen. Orrin Hatch (R- Utah) said, "that's what's been done for 214 years before Bush became president."       

Wrong. For he more than anyone is aware that more than 60 judicial nominees Clinton sent to the Senate between 1995 and 2000 never even got a hearing before the Republican controlled Judiciary Committee, with him (as its chairman) refusing to schedule action on the nominations.        

And Sen. Bill Frist (R-Tennessee) is another chameleon, who in the mid-1990's opposed a Democratic effort to make it harder to filibuster, and who now, as the Senate majority leader, is the point man in the GOP push to ban judicial filibusters.      

Inconsistency is, however, not a Republican trait alone. Back in the mid-1990's, Sen Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) tried to change the rules, calling the "filibuster a relic of the ancient past," whose now flip-flopped on his position; and Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), who said in 1997 "the Senate should provide advice and consent, not block lots of nominees," and yet from 2001-04 joined in successively filibustering 10 of Bush's court picks.       

So, how will the debate end? Beats me. But one thing for sure, is that as long as both parties continue savaging one another on the senate floor and in the media, the public's pressing problems will be given short shrift.