History of Filibuster.

[SleeplessinSoCal]

Assuming Wikipedia got their facts straight, can you all understand this? I am struggling to do so.

Helpful to pass along:

"Alexander Hamilton described super-majority requirements as being one of the main problems with the previous Articles of Confederation, and identified several evils which would result from such a requirement:

"To give a minority a negative upon the majority (which is always the case where more than a majority is requisite to a decision), is, in its tendency, to subject the sense of the greater number to that of the lesser. ...

The necessity of unanimity in public bodies, or of something approaching towards it, has been founded upon a supposition that it would contribute to security. But its real operation is to embarrass the administration, to destroy the energy of the government, and to substitute the pleasure, caprice, or artifices of an insignificant, turbulent, or corrupt junto, to the regular deliberations and decisions of a respectable majority.

In those emergencies of a nation, in which the goodness or badness, the weakness or strength of its government, is of the greatest importance, there is commonly a necessity for action.

The public business must, in some way or other, go forward. If a pertinacious minority can control the opinion of a majority, respecting the best mode of conducting it, the majority, in order that something may be done, must conform to the views of the minority; and thus the sense of the smaller number will overrule that of the greater, and give a tone to the national proceedings.

Hence, tedious delays; continual negotiation and intrigue; contemptible compromises of the public good. And yet, in such a system, it is even happy when such compromises can take place: for upon some occasions things will not admit of accommodation; and then the measures of government must be injuriously suspended, or fatally defeated.

It is often, by the impracticability of obtaining the concurrence of the necessary number of votes, kept in a state of inaction. Its situation must always savor of weakness, sometimes border upon anarchy."

Not so helpful:

"Accidental creation and early use of the filibuster
In 1789, the first U.S. Senate adopted rules allowing senators to move the previous question (by simple majority vote), which meant ending debate and proceeding to a vote. But Vice President Aaron Burr argued that the previous-question motion was redundant, had only been exercised once in the preceding four years, and should be eliminated, which was done in 1806, after he left office.

The Senate agreed and modified its rules. Because it created no alternative mechanism for terminating debate, filibusters became theoretically possible...."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filibuster_in_the_United_States_Senate?wprov=sfla1

[lagomorph777]

1. Both bits are helpful to understand.

Thanks for sharing.

[Shell_Seas]

2. A must read for understanding the filibuster and why it needs to go:

Kill Switch by Adam Jentleson

https://www.amazon.com/Kill-Switch-Crippling-American-Democracy/dp/1631497774