Katie Jenkins, Senior
SOCIAL MEDIA EDITOR
Over the past 50 years, senators have been making use of the filibuster law increasingly more. A filibuster occurs when a minority group in the Senate blocks a bill with only forty one votes to the majority 60, utilizing the right to unlimited debate to tire out their dissenters. Recently, this tactic has been used on every major bill brought to the Senate Floor, resulting in a lack of efficiency on major decisions, and party divisions.
Originally, debate could be ended with a simple majority vote, allowing Congress to make decisions quickly, however, Aaron Burr believed senators should have the ability to debate as much as necessary, and removed the vote to end debate. While this worked fine in the beginning, when the nation was small, and therefore the senate was small, unlimited debate became increasingly more problematic with the growth of Congress because there were more members to disagree with.
In 1917, Woodrow Wilson became frustrated with senators using the filibuster to block his bills, so he altered the Senate rules. Wilson wanted to return to the former rules of ending debate with a simple majority, but he compromised with the Senate to end debate with a super majority, or a 60/40 vote. The super majority vote, however, did not solve the issue, and the filibuster continued to be used. In the 1950’s, Southern senators used the filibuster to block bills pertaining to civil rights.
Even though they were in the minority opinion, Southern senators were still able to block Civil Rights bills from being passed, simply by using the filibuster and debating for hours on end. Eventually Mike Mansfield, the Senate majority leader, decided that the right to unlimited debate was being abused, and he eliminated the debate simply by starting with a super majority vote to debate or not. It then became easier for the filibuster to be utilized, and senators continue to use it to their advantage.
The filibuster has been used an increasing amount in recent years, on almost every major bill. The use of unlimited debate has become focused less on the actual topic of the bill. Instead, Senators often read from children’s books, simply to waste time in order to achieve more political gain. The filibuster allows the minority opinion to block bills and waste legislative time. Removing the filibuster would not only save time, and create a more efficient senate, but it would create fewer party disagreements resulting in gridlock.
The House of Representatives already removed the filibuster in 1888, after realizing that it was preventing the House from representing the views of the American people. The Senate filibuster should be removed to create a more efficient Senate that coincides with the will of the people.