To access extended pro and con arguments, sources, and discussion questions about whether the US Senate should keep the filibuster, go to ProCon.org.
A filibuster is a parliamentary means for blocking a legislative body’s vote on an issue. As Encyclopaedia Britannica explains, a filibuster is “used in the United States Senate by a minority of the senators—sometimes even a single senator—to delay or prevent parliamentary action by talking so long that the majority either grants concessions or withdraws the bill.” The strategy is only used in the Senate because “unlike the House of Representatives, in which rules limit speaking time, the Senate allows unlimited debate on a bill. Speeches can be completely irrelevant to the issue.”
Two tactics can be used to defeat the filibuster: by invoking cloture (thereby limiting or ending debate and mandating a vote on the issue at hand) or by maintaining around-the-clock sessions to tire those using the filibuster. Perhaps the most famous depiction of a marathon filibuster, and the various tactics used to fight it, is the climactic scene in the classic 1939 movie Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, when the star of the film, an idealistic freshman senator played by Jimmy Stewart, finally collapses on the Senate floor from exhaustion.
The word “filibuster” itself emerged from piracy. Derived from Dutch and Spanish, the term first appeared in English in 1591 as “flee-booters,” referring to people who raided the Caribbean Spanish colonies. The word gained a syllable along the way, and by the 1850s “filibusters” were Americans who traveled to the Spanish West Indies and Central America to encourage revolution. When applied to Senate speechifying, as NPR host Melissa Block has explained, “Filibustering senators were, by extension, pirates raiding the Congress for their own political gain.”
The debate over eliminating the filibuster is almost as old as its appearance in the Senate. As early as 1841, Kentucky Whig Senator Henry Clay, frustrated with filibustering Democrats, threatened to limit debate. Alabama Democrat Senator William King countered that Clay might as well “make his arrangements at his boarding house for the [entire] winter” in preparation for even longer debates to maintain the filibuster.
PRO
- The filibuster promotes compromise and protects the voice and mandate of the minority party.
- The filibuster protects the intended purpose of the Senate: purposeful debate.
- The filibuster is an important safeguard against political extremism and corporate influence.
CON
- The filibuster promotes obstructionism and partisanship, allowing the minority party to rule without a national mandate.
- The filibuster prevents meaningful debate and slows the work of the Senate.
- The filibuster is a Jim Crow relic used to block meaningful legislation.
This article was published on August 17, 2022, at Britannica’s ProCon.org, a nonpartisan issue-information source.