Who’s preventing stuff from getting done? I’m Mr. Beat
And have you ever wondered why so many bills (punching) die in the United States Senate,
especially in recent years?
Well, it’s more than them barely showing up to work actually. Nope, there’a a bigger reason.
In this video, I’m gonna explain why the U.S. Senate rarely passes a law.
In order to do that, we must first go to a magical place I like to call “the past.” Join me!
(pretending to fly) Let’s go back. No, further. Nope, even further. There we go. The year was
1805, and Aaron Burr, the second worst Vice President in American history (in my opinion), was
presiding over the U.S. Senate. Burr, who had recently been indicted for MURDERING ALEXANDER
HAMILTON GOODNESS GRACIOUS, called to get rid of the rule known as the “previous question”
motion. The previous question motion just said a simple majority of the Senate could vote to cut
off debate on a bill in order to vote on it. Now, in Burr’s defense, he didn’t think it’d be
a big deal, AND he thought it might make things run more smoothly in the Senate.
The Senate agreed with him, and the next year they got rid of the “previous question” motion, and for
the next 31 years there were no problems. A group of Whig senators who hated Andrew Jackson voted to
censure him, or express formal disapproval of him. However, flash forward to January 1837, and now
the Democrats had an overwhelming majority in the Senate- soon to be 2/3 as matter of fact- and were
like “we shall set the record straight dad gomit,” deciding to vote to REVERSE the censure. So in
response, the Whig Senators were like “nu-huh,” and realized they could just keep debating about
it to delay the vote. Well it didn’t work. They got tired and the censure was reversed anyway.
Still, this open up a BIG OL’ CAN OF WORMS.
Four years later, now the Whigs had the majority in the Senate,
and this time the Democrats were like, “we can do that too, bruh,” extending
debate to prevent a bill from being passed to charter a new national bank. That all said,
over the next several decades, the Senate still passed a lot of new laws. Why? Because they still
only needed a majority. The minority party could delay the vote as best as they could,
but eventually they would just get tired OR the majority party would actually change their minds
and decide not to vote on a bill if the minority opposition was convincing or…uh…loud enough,
I suppose. By the 1800s, filibusters became more and more common. Hold up, fila WHAT?
I haven’t even defined filibusters yet. What is wrong with me? Well a lot of things are wrong
with me, but that’s ok because no human being is perfect. Except for Mrs. Beat, of course.
Before I define what filibusters are, keep in mind the historical definition of filibuster is
totally different. It used to be a term reserved for the Raiders.
No, not the NFL team the Chiefs recently beat 48 to 9 (heh heh heh), the actual raiders of
the Spanish colonies in the West Indies during the 1700s. Yep, filibusters were pirates. Later,
folks called American adventurers who incited revolution and took over Latin American states
filibusters. Like that William Walker dude, an American who somehow was able to take over
Nicaragua for a year. However, it wasn’t until the 1850s that journalists began calling debating in
order to delay votes on a bill as “filibustering.” By the 1880s, “filibuster” was now the noun we
know it as today: any action meant to delay a legislative assembly from passing a law.
Flash forward to March 1917, and the Senate was now debating whether or not the United States
should supply merchant ships with weapons to defend themselves against German submarines
attacking them during World War One. Well, twelve Senators who definitely didn’t want
the United States to get involved with the war successfully managed to kill the bill by
filibustering. In response, at the urging of President Woodrow Wilson, the Senate was like
“enough is freaking enough,” and created a new rule that allowed debates on a bill to
end in the form of a cloture, or way to quickly end debate to begin voting. However,
since the Republican minority was worried that a cloture could potentially silence
the minority in the Senate, they were only on board with it as long as it was a SUPERMAJORITY
cloture. In this case, 2/3 of the Senate had to agree with the cloture.
So we can thank Woodrow Wilson for cloture.
Or maybe he just made things worse with that supermajority requirement?
Ironically, the first cloture vote happened two years later and worked against something
that Woodrow Wilson wanted- it ended debate on whether or not the United States should
accept the Treaty of Versailles, and the cloture vote led to rejecting the treaty.
However, filibustering certainly didn’t decline after this. Oh no. In fact, it just got
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Ok, so back to how filibustering got worse.
In the early 1930s, even though Democrats had a supermajority in the Senate, Democratic Senator
Huey Long of Louisiana, the Kingfish himself, used the filibuster to promote his populist ideas.
He would talk and talk and talk and talk, sometimes reciting Shakespeare and reading recipes
during his filibusters. Jump ahead to 1946, and five Democratic Senators filibustered for several
weeks in order to block a vote on a bill to prevent discrimination in the workplace because I
guess they liked discrimination in the workplace? I know, I know, it’s more complicated than that.
Famously, on August 28, 1957, Senator Strom Thurmond of South Carolina set the record
for the Senate’s longest solo filibuster. He got up and spoke for 24 hours and 18 minutes
to prevent voting on the Civil Rights Act of 1957. In order to save his voice and stamina,
Thurmond spent time taking questions and allowing senators to respond to him. He only went to the
bathroom once, and some say he only ended the filibuster to prevent damage to his kidneys.
Oh by the way the Civil Rights Act of 1957
passed less than two hours after his filibuster ended. Sorry Strom.
Perhaps Strom was influenced, though, by the nearly 24-hour solo filibuster that took place by
Senator Jefferson Smith a few years prior. Wait hold up. Now that I think about it,
that didn’t really happen. Ah yes. That was a movie. A pretty darn good one, actually,
called Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. The legendary actor James Stewart played Senator Smith,
and it was actually a much more noble filibuster than Thurmond’s , as Smith
was fighting the abuse of power and corruption. And Thurmond? Uh, no.
Needless to say,
after Mr. Smith Goes to Washington these “talking filibusters” became more common.
In 1964, Democratic Senators did a talking filibuster for 75 hours to block a vote
on another civil rights bill, the more famous bill that became the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
And then, in 1975, some more changes. The Senate revised its cloture rule to
make the supermajority 3/5 instead of 2/3. However, the rule said that it wouldn’t be
3/5 majority of Senators present and voting, but 3/5 of the absolute number of Senators,
meaning now you had to have 60 out of 100 Senators there to vote to end debate. So, ever since,
the Senate has both a talking filibuster and a “silent filibuster,” silent filibuster meaning
a senator can delay a bill even if they’re not physically at the capitol. They can just literally
stay home to prevent a vote on a bill. Not only that, debate doesn’t even have to begin.
Now, there have been cloture vote exceptions over the years.
Notably, in recent years the Senate has used the
“nuclear option,” which means they can threaten to end the filibuster by using nuclear weapons.
That was a bad joke. I’m kidding, ok! Nuclear option just means a simple majority vote.
But yeah, they used the nuclear option to get rid of the filibuster on executive branch nominees
and judicial nominees, which, thank goodness for that because there’d be
hardly anyone approved for appointments because, in case you hadn’t noticed,
the United States is a little divided right now. And this brings me to my last point.
If it weren’t for the fact that the United States has been so divided over the past 25 years, the
filibuster wouldn’t be as big of a deal. Just look at this graph. This graph shows cloture voting
in the United States since it began in 1917. Notice a pattern here? Specifically, here? This
graph is a quick way to see how filibustering has dramatically increased since the 1970s. In other
words, the minority party in the Senate has been a LOT louder and more powerful since then. It’s
not like the Senate hasn’t passed laws since the 1970s. However, it’s been increasingly difficult
for them to pass MEANINGFUL laws ever since. The big ones. Ya know, the ones that truly reform
society. The last big law to pass was probably the Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare. They
barely got 60 votes to avoid the filibuster for it, and that was in 2010. 12 years ago.
In conclusion, the reason why it’s soooo freaking difficult for the U.S. Senate to pass any new law
is mostly due to…an accident because the creation of the filibuster was an accident. Even Aaron Burr
likely didn’t mean for it to turn out this way. Only later did the minority political party
make arguments that the filibuster was a good idea in order to protect the minority.
By the way…whenever you hear someone argue that the Founding Fathers actually wanted the Senate to
have a filibuster. Chuck Schumer: "They believe if you get 51 of the vote there should be one party
rule we will stand in their way because an America of checks and balances is the America we love
it's the America the founding fathers created it's been the America that's kept us successful
for 200 years and we're not going to let them change it" I doubt this person actually knows what
the heck they are talking about. In fact, if you go back and read what many of them said and wrote,
they warned that making supermajorities a thing would lead to bills never getting passed.
Freaking Aaron Burr. Nah man, the arguments FOR the
filibuster came much later. Not that they’re bad arguments. Folks who want to keep the
filibuster in place argue it promotes compromise on legislation, keeps majority power in check,
provides needed delays on big changes, and, when done properly, fosters healthy debate on bills.
For this reason, the filibuster likely will be around for a while in the Senate. I’ve
often thought, though, if Aaron Burr was around today, would he actually support the filibuster?
Also, would he challenge me to a duel if I talked trash about him? I guess we’ll never know.
So what do YOU think? Should we get rid of the filibuster so that the Senate can
actually start passing meaningful laws again? Let me know in the comments below. Personally,
I lean toward keeping the talking filibuster to foster a healthy debate on bills in the
Senate, but ditching the silent filibuster. Thanks for watching!