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!