filibuster definition government

filibuster definition government

The Role and Impact of Filibusters in Government

1. Introduction to Filibusters in Government

Throughout the nation’s history, Congress has used filibusters of various kinds to protect the minority’s right to be heard. This tradition is grounded in the framers’ rejection of the idea of a majority dictatorship and their realization that governance in a nation as large and complex as the United States would be highly problematic, if not fatally flawed, if political minorities were unable to protect many of their most vital interests. The Senate’s culture of deliberation reinforces this tradition by making the prospect of extended debate less objectionable than it might be in other institutions. Even-conducted filibusters are not pleasant because they can entail long hours of continuous oratory; real legislative progress is halted. In these situations, the Senate becomes a forum for the unique clarifying function demanded by the Constitution’s separation of powers, providing a way to link public opinion to the policy and governance implications inherent to specific legislative proposals. The problem is not the filibuster itself. It is the manner in which today’s conduct of filibusters has deviated from this idealized model, essentially short-circuiting other elements of the legislative process.

2. Historical Evolution of Filibusters

Senators strengthened the cloture rule in 1949, specifying that no more than two-thirds of those present and voting could agree to limit debate on a rules change. They also made invoking cloture progressively more difficult, reducing the requirement for ending debate from two-thirds present and voting to two-thirds of the entire Senate (present and voting plus absent and not voting) to three-fifths present and voting plus absent and not voting in 1959. Together, these revisions have quadrupled the number of votes needed to invoke cloture. The cloture rule has been modified less formally as well and even suspended to limit debate and secure an actual vote before an issue involved could be aired, dealt with in other ways, or changed, thereby sharpening its selective influence.

Filibusters prevent the Senate from bringing a question to a final vote on passage. Once invoked, the cloture rule restricts further consideration of a pending question to thirty additional hours, during which no other matters may be considered. Any legislator may file a cloture motion, but it is agreed to only with the support of three-fifths of the Senate, normally sixty out of one hundred senators. Without a three-fifths majority, a proposed amendment to a bill or the bill itself can be kept from a vote and effectively vetoed. Cloture is also the only procedure by which the Senate can limit consideration of resolutions, such as convention proposals and treaty amendments, and impeachments.

3. Controversies and Debates Surrounding Filibusters

The uncertainties are compounded by the evolution of changes and developments that have taken place in the parliamentary body over time. This raises important questions about the circumstances and settings that condition the filibuster’s utility and distortiveness. Are there conditions under which it is more or less likely to promote debate or encourage mischief? Under what conditions can it be effective, costly, or used infrequently? Does it generate supermajority rule incentives or mostly reflect the preferences and interests of the minority? Does it reflect strategic concerns or sincere ones by making outcomes better or the legislative process worse? The answers to these and other related questions not only affect assessments of its utility today but also have important implications for proposals to reform or amend this procedure as well.

Few people doubt the filibuster’s crucial role in shaping the dynamics of the legislative process. However, there remains considerable debate and controversy surrounding its utility. Some believe it creates supermajority rule, emphasizes compromise, and protects the rights of the minority. Others view it more cynically as a device for minority dictation, mischief, and obstruction that thwarts democratic rule, diminishes government accountability, rewards intransigents, and encumbers policy change. As one scholar has argued, it is the “central paradox in the Senate’s current operation… while filibusters may enrich deliberative discussion in the Senate, they also disrupt it at critical times.” In the absence of its evident flaw because it is still patterned after the procedures and practices of the British House of Lords that was never structured to handle or care about popular beliefs that are currently found in democratic systems, this explanation for its existence remains debatable and unclear.

4. Impact of Filibusters on Legislation and Governance

The requirement to produce supermajorities will delay the legislative process. It will be harder for governments to achieve legislative breakthroughs. Rather than thinking of concessions that can attract a majority, knowing that a significant minority might sponsor a filibuster implies that political parties might be forced to accommodate their peripheral renegades even though the majority would vote against such proposals. The political cost of a filibuster, the uncertain likelihood that one threatened will be followed through, and the unintended consequences that are associated with raising the threshold for approval can thus all have adjusted to the evidence and be updated in the shadow of filibusters.

The presence of filibusters in government contributes to a slower legislative process and limits the amount of legislation that can be considered. The requirement to produce a supermajority on the policy status quo will reduce policy changes even when a clear majority supports a proposal. An implication of this finding is that leadership and party whips might like having a tool to keep their members in line. Importantly, adding a consideration of filibuster wielding minorities provides new reasons for the reduced entrenchment that is observed in the operation of actual political institutions, and asymmetric bicameralism in particular.

5. Conclusion and Future Perspectives

There are a number of possible extensions of this work that seek to improve our understanding of minority obstruction and mitigate the negative impacts of this standard of behavior. One is to use a theoretical framework that provides a deeper understanding of why and when minority obstruction is chosen. Even a formal model that applies the label “obstruction,” the Downsian model of blocking, gathers dust in a long line of microfoundational attempts to explain majority party behavior in legislatures. There may be many reasons for this slow development in the area of analyzing obstruction. Blocking and bargaining formal models assume short-sighted parties to prove solutions. In a recent related paper, we argue that both down-the-road and postponement bargaining models and related blocking models require very careful behavioral assumptions to derive theoretical results. The final conclusions are context-dependent and should be used as part of a broader theory on party negotiation, rather than as a universal test of every case in every game.

In this chapter, we have revisited an old question—what motivates and sustains minority obstruction in a bicameral legislature?—and have used new tools and data to examine it in a new way. We find clear evidence that the two parties—Democrats in the House and Republicans in the Senate—follow a minority obstruction strategy with the hope that a future election will lessen or eliminate the power of the other party to shape policy. This strategy is sustained by the responses of voters. Partisans of obstructing parties are more optimistic about the next election and are more likely to support obstructive action when presented with an electoral matrix that amplifies the changes in their party’s expected power. These individual-level responses are related to the aggregate level policy changes associated with parties following these strategies.