It's not 'Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.' - Senate filibusters

Washington Monthly, Nov, 1996 by Bill Dauster

The Lady Vanished.... "I object," was all she said before she turned and strode through the swinging doors. Senate Democratic Leader Tom Daschle called out to the lady, Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison: "Would the senator from Texas wish to state her reason for the objection? Mr. President, could we get the attention of the senator from Texas?" But she was gone.

Such is the fashion of the filibuster in the modern Senate. No longer does a senator hold the floor in long, impassioned debate, as in the film Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. Now legislators log their filibusters with the leadership, and the Senate pretends to hold them. A senator doesn't even need to attend her own filibuster. Her party handles it for her.

It used to be more like the movies. Senators delivered seemingly interminable speeches. They taxed their stamina to the limit. They employed clever means to sustain themselves for long periods during which they could neither eat nor withdraw to answer nature's call.

The indefatigable Senator Strom Thurmond holds the record. In August 1957, he addressed the Senate for 24 hours and 18 minutes in an effort to halt the advance of civil rights for African Americans. Running a close second, Senator Wayne Morse held the floor for over 22 hours fighting the Tidelands oil bill in 1953. Senator Robert La Follette Sr. spent almost 19 hours on his feet battling the Aldrich-Vreeland currency bill in 1908.

These somnolent soliloquies earned the Senate a reputation as a tiring place. Former Dean of the House of Representatives Jamie Whitten told how, in the wee hours of the morning, Senator Homer Ferguson once confessed, "Jamie, there are only two ways our Senate can act, either by unanimous consent or exhaustion."

The record for the longest speech of recent years belongs to Senator Alfonse D'Amato of New York, who held up a tax bill in October 1992 in a vain bid to save jobs at a Cortland, N. Y., typewriter factory. But Senator D'Amato's election-year filibuster had more to do with showmanship than legislation. His performance included singing selections from "Deep in the Heart of Texas" (for the benefit of Finance Committee Chairman Lloyd Bentsen, who just wanted to finish his tax bill) and "South of the Border" (where the typewriter jobs seemed headed). Alessandra Stanley of The New York Times placed it "somewhere between Jimmy Stewart taking on the capital and the final moments of the 'Jerry Lewis Telethon."'

Senator D'Amato's musical revue was the exception to the modern rule. More and more frequently, senators are forgoing the traditional practice of personally holding the floor to delay a vote. Now, senators simply register with their party leader, usually by letter, their objections to the Senate's proceeding to a matter. This objection--called "a hold"--implies the threat of a filibuster should the Senate take up the disputed matter. With the leadership honoring her hold, a senator can be assured that action on the disputed matter will be slowed--even in the senator's absence. The majority leader reserves the right to force a senator to come down to the Senate floor and object in person, as Majority Leader Trent Lott obliged Senator Hutchison to do on the occasion just related. But once Senator Hutchison registered her objection, she felt entirely secure exiting the chamber, relying on her leader to protect her rights--in this instance, to block the confirmation of a district court judge in Minnesota.

Of course, by choosing not to hold the floor themselves, senators lose some of their influence over the process. In honoring a hold, the party leadership agrees to slow a disputed matter from coming to the floor, but its overriding concerns remain to advance the party's general interests and to prevent the legislative process from grinding to a halt. (In Hutchison's case, the Senate went on to confirm the nominee.) If the disputed matter affects only one region or interest group, the party may not do much to protect an individual senator. In such instances, the affected legislators may have to resort to a full-fledged filibuster, as Senators Harry Reid and Richard Bryan of Nevada did in opposing legislation to locate a nuclear waste dump in their state. Still, more and more frequently, senators seem content to sacrifice a little control for convenience.

Stand and Deliver

When senators felt compelled to stand and deliver their demurrals, they tended to reserve the filibuster for a deeply held belief. But the modern filibuster, what Senate Parliamentarian Bob Dove calls "the gentleman's filibuster," involves so little inconvenience to individual senators that they use it for everything. Now, minor policy disputes readily escalate into filibusters requiring a vote of cloture, creating what Dove calls the "60-vote Senate": Any matter about which senators hold any feelings winds up requiring a supermajority of votes. As then-Senator Dan Quayle complained to Congressional Quarterly in 1987, the Senate has "trivialized" the filibuster.