Filibusters

Just in case you wondered, from David Waldman, at Daily Kos:

"there have already been about as many cloture votes taken during this Congress as there were between World War I and the moon landing."

I particularly commend this article and the congressional table to which it is linked, to the likes of the commenter at this site who claimed that there were no filibusters in all of 2009; this apparently because no one was up there talking 'till they fell asleep, like the Jimmy Stewart movie which is apparently this person's main source of knowledge of the filibuster process.

Comments

Derek said…
In 2009, the Republicans lost every single cloture vote. So, how many times did Republicans filibuster in 2009? Zero. I know you'd like to think a filibuster in itself is a bad thing, but it prevents the majority from trampling the minority. The Democrats threatened to filibuster many times in the late 90s and early 00s. Remember the Housing Reregulatory Act of 2005? The Dems stopped that one with the threat to filibuster, and they actually had the votes.

The Democrats had 60 votes in 2009.
March 5, 2010 at 10:41 PM
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