In recent years, the U.S. Senate has been embroiled in a countless number of filibusters
which have a long history in the U.S. Congress. To supporters of the filibuster, such political
procedures play an important role in a democratic society. They believe that the filibuster
embodies the spirits of democracy to protect the minority from oppression in the United States.
Reformers or skeptics of the filibuster, on the other hand, believe that filibusters sometimes
severely hinder the operations of the government. Although people have witnessed many
filibusters in history, the number of filibusters in the past few years surprised and infuriated
many in America. In 2014, President Obama reprimanded Republicans for having “filibustered
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The minority starts a filibuster by extending a debate or by making long
speeches, which usually takes hours. Senators treat filibusters as bargaining chips to negotiate
with the majority, which dominates the Senate with more senators elected. Because “the Senate
has no Rules Committee and instead determines the length and structure of its debates by
unanimous consent agreement” (English 109), the definition of filibuster varies. It usually
depends on the context of debates between parties on specific bills. Senators can regard any
speeches delivered by the opposition as filibusters, if they believe that those speeches are
intended to delay the voting of a bill. Filibustering in the Senate has its origin back to “the
1850s” (“Filibuster and Cloture”), yet many landmark filibusters happened in the 20th century.
For instance, in 1957 “South Carolina Senator Strom Thurmond spoke continuously for twenty-
four hours and eighteen minutes to prevent the passage of civil rights legislation. Thurmond still
holds the record for the longest filibuster” (English 110). However, because of the time-
consuming characteristic of filibusters, debates over changing the regulations to curtail