Filibuster (then): Noun; an exceptionally long speech, as one lasting for a day or days, or a series of such speeches to accomplish this purpose.
Filibuster (now): a minority announces they should be considered as if they are doing the above, without actually having to do it, and therefore can not be considered finished without a supermajority vote to agree to stop pretending.
I'm pretty sure these day's everyone knows what a filibuster is, they may not know the mechanics but they know enough to know that in the US senate the filibuster is a way to stop everything, from laws to judicial appointments to non binding resolutions, if someone announces a filibuster the item, whatever it is is DOA.
But it didnt used to be that way. In fact the filibuster wasnt supposed to exist at all. In 1789 the first US senate decided a rule that would terminate debate on an given issue was redundant and eliminated it. They couldnt see why a debate wouldn't end eventually so they didnt see a need to force its ending. This created a "loophole" which meant in theory there was no way to force someone to "shut up and vote", but at the time that's all it was a theory, . It wouldnt be until the discussions over the Second Bank of the United States that someone would even threaten to keep talking. In world war I, cloture was created as the first early attempt to make you shut up and vote, but like the filibuster was mostly theoretical, the few filibusters that had happened usually only ran for a few hours until the speaker had to take care of some basic need or another (food bathroom ect)
In fact, the famous filibuster of the civil rights act of 1964 was ended after 70+ hours by cloture, and that was only the second time the procedure had been used, and even then only because that filibuster had been a record, the previous one standing at just over 24 hours.
But then someone had an idea, why bother to do all that talking, especially when most of it was meaningless, reading the phonebook for example was a common filibuster trick, when all you have to do is announce that if the other side continues you will filibuster, and force them to preemptively overcome the opposition.
Which is what happens today, one side announces a bill, the other side says if forced we will filibuster, the first side calls for a cloture vote if it fails they basically decide "screw it we got better things to do with our time" and agree to drop their item in order to move on.
And that in many ways is why congress is currently broken, literally anything can be filibustered and usually is, requiring a defacto 60 votes to in order to pass anything and not the constitutionally required 50+1 (well half +1). Which is why ever election cycle the winning side says they are going to reform the filibuster. (however fear of not having it the next time they are in the minority usually stops any thing from happening)
And since we just had an election, here comes filibuster reform right on que.
The thing is, this filibuster reform, like most of whats been proposed by both sides in recent decades isnt really going to fix the problem, its just going to fix the appearance of a problem. in fact Harry Reid (senate majority leader) has already said he wont eliminate the filibuster outright.
Instead one of the big things the democrats are pushing this time is a ban on filibustering a "motion to proceed" which is used to bring a bill to the floor for debate. In other words, to no longer allow people to not allow debate on allowing debate (this is why the senate gives everyone headaches :p ).
But once the bill reaches the floor for debate? AKA the time a filibuster is supposed to happen? what's gonna be done about those filibusters? nothing. If you ask Reid it forces the filibusters to be done more openly where people can see them, but this of course assumes people actually pay any more attention to filibusters then what they see on TV/Papers/Internet. Since those 3 sources are how most people get news, it wont make much of a difference.
And keep in mind under Reid's proposal, the bill is still not going to get anywhere, its just going to get a bit father before it dies. Now maybe its just me, but being able to run an extra 50 feet before crashing head first into the same brick wall I used to hit 50 feet earlier isn't what I call real reform. Its more of filibuster "reform" to get people to think they fixed it and not have to do anything
Real reform for the record would be the idea of Senator Jeff Merkley to actually force people to carry through on the threat and actually do an old school talking filibuster. Yes even under this rule the filibuster will still exist, but at least they will evenually end (if history is any indication most of them within a day or two) and bills will be passed, judges confirmed and the senate will actually function and get things done. AKA real reform (even if not total elimination)
It should be noted as well, Merkley proposed this last time as well and he got 39 votes from senators who will still be there this time around. Since then 7 more democratic senators were elected this time around who support some form of reform as does independent Angus King, and John Kerry and Daniel Inouye have said as much as well. So those guys added to Harry Reid make 50, which is all thats needed to change the filibuster (since senate rules are about the only thing that cant be filibuster, and Biden is expected to side with the reformers).
Of course the problem is Inouye only supports the Reid plan, and Kerry is on the fence as to who he supports as are a few of the new senators. So while the filibuster will hopefully change this time, we could have 6 votes or less make the difference between actually getting Filibuster reform or just getting filibuster "reform"....
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