http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fillabuster#Procedural_filibuster
April 22, 2009
You might not realize this
But when you hear about minority parties in congress threatening or performing a fillabuster that they don't actually do them anymore. they have what's called a procedural fillabuster where the congresspeople agree that they'd rather not sit around through a boring fillabuster and just pretend one happened. yeah. that's right
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ReplyDeleteThe advantage to this type of procedural filibuster is that other business of the Senate can be commenced without the delays and embarrassments of a real filibuster being necessary to remove the issue from further consideration. The disadvantage of this procedure is that it can potentially be abused. As a means to help prevent the abuse of the procedural filibuster, the majority leader retains the authority to force the minority to prove that they actually have the necessary votes to prevent cloture and to perform a real filibuster.
Since 1975 the procedural filibuster has been used successfully many times and has not been challenged. It is a powerful tool and one that is unique to our American political system.
if they were forced to keep real filibusters there would be less of them hence it would be a real threat. senators don't give a shit about embarassment or "taking care of business"
ReplyDeleteIt helps them get to other important issues quicker and they can still be forced to do a real filibuster. And filibusters aren't innate.
ReplyDeletethe thing is they DONT do real fillibusters, and being innate doesn't really enter into it. it's a tool we implemented for a minority party to have a last resort to stop something they are strongly against, to use a procedural fillabuster at every bill is ridiculous because you end up only being able to pass legislation that has a fillibuster proof majority. If that isn't obstructing "important issues" than I don't know what is.
ReplyDeleteshut up
ReplyDeleteIt being innate enter in to it because, as you said, it's a tool we implemented for a minority party to have a last resort to stop something they are strongly against. Remember that the majority leader retains the authority to force the minority to prove that they actually have the necessary votes to prevent cloture and to perform a real filibuster. So if they want to delay shit they can.
ReplyDelete