The Filibuster

The filibuster is a Senate procedure that allows a minority of senators to delay or block a vote on legislation by extending debate. Today, ending a filibuster requires 60 votes to invoke cloture.

The filibuster grew out of the Senate's tradition of unlimited debate. Unlike the House, where rules sharply restrict floor time, the Senate has long allowed senators to hold the floor for as long as they wish on most matters. In 1841, Senator Henry Clay tried to impose limits but was blocked. The first true filibuster came in 1837, and the tactic has been used in nearly every form of contested legislation since. For most of the nineteenth century, a filibuster could be ended only when its participants gave up. The Senate adopted Rule XXII in 1917, allowing two-thirds of senators to invoke cloture and cut off debate. The threshold was lowered to three-fifths, or 60 of 100 senators, in 1975. Filibusters were rare for most of American history. They were used most notoriously by Southern senators to delay civil rights legislation. The filibuster against the Civil Rights Act of 1964 lasted 60 days and remains the longest in Senate history. In recent decades, the filibuster has become routine. The 60-vote threshold now applies to almost all major legislation, effectively requiring supermajority support to pass anything significant. Both parties have used the filibuster aggressively in opposition and chafed against it in power. The Senate has carved out exceptions. Budget reconciliation bills, which deal with taxes and spending, require only a simple majority. Judicial nominations were exempted from the filibuster in 2013 for lower federal courts and in 2017 for the Supreme Court. Defenders of the filibuster argue that it forces compromise and protects minority interests. Critics argue that it has become a routine obstruction that prevents the Senate from doing the business of the country. Whether to preserve, modify, or eliminate it is one of the recurring institutional questions of modern American politics.