All RIGHT. The good old-fashioned original "Filibuster".
It was descended from the old Senate rules, which said that anybody could get up an talk about the bill... or anything else they want... for as long as they wanted. Nobody could stop them unless somebody called for "Cloture", which meant calling for a vote to cut off debate... and it took a 75% supermajority to cut off "debate". (Later changed to 60% in 1975 I believe).
Sometimes the minority would begin talking. And talking. And talking. And by Senate rules at the time, no other bills or other business may be discussed until the talking stopped. The idea was to hold up all Senate business, and thus draw the attention of **THE MEDIA**, who would start running articles saying "What on earth are those Senators doing, let's examine it closely, etc. etc.
Minority Senators would skillfully yield time to one another, which kept anyone from interrupting or stopping them. They would bring in food and drink. They would bring in cots to the Senate chamber to sleep on, each Senator in the minority party being woken up in time to get yielded to. They would read the bill ten times. They would read the Bible. The would read the New York phone book. Backward.
When the media finally started asking the minority Senators what on earth they were doing, they would explain VERY PUBLICLY why they thought the bill was so bad, and must not be allowed to pass even though the majority wanted to pass it. It often generated enough calls from PO'd citizens to the majority Senators, that some of them started changing their intended vote. When that happened enough times, the minority finally stopped talking, and let the vote happen, and the bill would be voted down. They hoped.
When the cloture-vote supermajority was changed to 60% in 1975, they also changed the rule saying no other business could be done in the Senate during the filibuster. That formed today's "silent filibuster", where the Senate minority leader simply indicates the minority would filibuster. And that would change a 51% vote needed to pass the bill, essentially to a 60% vote to end the silent "filibuster" and THEN a second vote to pass the bill by 51%.
It basically destroyed the whole purpose of the filibuster, which was to cause a huge hooraw and attract a lot of attention, so the voterrs get more involved and start telling their Senators what they wanted them to do. Now the Senate Minority Leader simply indicates a filibuster, the required margin shifts from 51% to 60%, the bill gets quietly dropped, and business goes on.
But today when the minority Senators call a filibuster, it doesn't HAVE to be a "silent filibuster". They can start talking, and talking, etc., just like in the days of old.
And that's exactly what they are doing right now.
Quote:
Originally Posted by VA Yankee
Doesn't that violate the Geneva Convention as cruel and unusual punishment??
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Just being a member of Congress does that.
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