When I watch old movies and it shows a Senate filibuster, it always shows a dedicated person refusing to cede the floor and going through a marathon session to stop a vote.
It was rarely used and seldom successful but as the years passed the rules were changed to make filibuster a normal practice, although no actual filibuster actually takes place.
The reason for this is the rule on cloture which means limiting debate and thus ending a filibuster. It was designed to allow legislation to pass but it has actually had the opposite effect.
It takes 60 votes to invoke cloture and in the absence of that we can assume a no effort filibuster.
The virtual filibuster we now have has reduced the amount of legislation actually considered and passed by the Senate. Individual Senators do not have to take positions on specific pieces of legislation if cloture is not passed.
Whether the filibuster has any benefit, it is currently requiring almost no effort at all. It can be reformed to return to its roots where maintaining a filibuster actually required significant effort. We have passed rules to allow legislative impasse without effort or even identification.
Some argue that doing this will cause policy to shift every time the majority party changes. Why is listening to the voters a bad thing?
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