History Of Filibuster Essay

A filibuster is a major power anyone in the senate holds. According to Sarah Binder author of “The History of Filibuster” (Binder, 2010), a filibuster was not intended by the framers when they were making the Constitution. Both the House of Representative and the Senate had the same rules for debating in 1789. Both had the power to cut off and end the debate when there was a simple majority. But Sarah said “In 1805, Vice President Aaron Burr was presiding over the Senate (freshly indicted for the murder of Alexander Hamilton), and he offered this advice. He said something like this. You are a great deliberative body. But a truly great Senate would have a cleaner rule book. Yours is a mess. You have lots of rules that do the same thing. And he singles out the previous question motion. (Binder, 2010)” Therefore the Senate did not hesitate and took the chance to get rid of the

Filibusters were not a common thing before the civil war because the senate was a lot smaller and they did not have the responsibilities like they do now. They had all the time to wait out their opponent’s filibuster and the senate were not all that polar. It was not until civil rights when the senate got really polarized and used filibuster to oppose civil right bills. This continued with “election law, nominations, even appointment of Senate officers.” Whenever filibuster happens, the leaders tries to put an end to it, and ban the unlimited debate time. But because the minority loves this advantage they had, they would use filibuster to stop the passing of a filibuster ban bill. But when reelections happens and the minority now becomes the majority they decide to ban filibuster and the then majority not minority use the same method to stop them instead. This becomes a forever ending cycle of trying to use filibuster for their advantage but trying not to give opposing side the power to filibuster (Binder,