There is no Senate rule governing the proper uses of the filibuster.
So I put that all together and I find it makes it hard to justify a filibuster.
I will not let the patriot act, the most un-patriotic of acts, go unchallenged.
The filibuster is an affront to commonly understood democratic norms, but then so is the Senate.
It used to be in the Senate that if you were filibustering, you stood up, there was a physical dimension to it, that you when you became exhausted, you'd have to leave the floor. That was the idea of the filibuster.
Filibusters have proliferated because under current rules just one or two determined senators can stop the Senate from functioning. Today, the mere threat of a filibuster is enough to stop a vote; senators are rarely asked to pull all-nighters like Jimmy Stewart in 'Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. '
I would never filibuster any President’s judicial nominee, period. I might vote against them, but I will always see they came to a vote.
The next time you do a filibuster, keep walking around.
You know, the purpose of reconciliation is to avoid the filibuster. The filibuster is an effort to talk something to death.
Eleanor Roosevelt fights for an anti-lynch law with the NAACP, with Walter White and Mary McLeod Bethune. And she begs FDR to say one word, say one word to prevent a filibuster or to end a filibuster. From '34 to '35 to '36 to '37 to '38, it comes up again and again, and FDR doesn't say one word. And the correspondence between them that we have, I mean, she says, "I cannot believe you're not going to say one word. " And she writes to Walter White, "I've asked FDR to say one word. Perhaps he will. " But he doesn't. And these become very bitter disagreements.
The only tool the Democrats have is in the Senate, and it's the filibuster.
