Filibustering in the U.S. Senate By Lauren C. Bell

For this reason, the vast majority of legislative business that is brought to the floor in the Senate is brought under a “unanimous consent agreement.” This is an agreement between the majority leader and the minority leader that specifies the parameters under which legislation will be considered. Each leader is assumed to have the authority to represent his or her rank-and-file members’ views; therefore, a unanimous consent agreement should never be objected to because such agreements should not come into existence until both leaders are certain they will be able to keep their party members from objecting to moving forward on the legislation. Of course, these leaders rarely have perfect information; moreover, because unanimous consent agreements represent compromises between the majority and minority party in the chamber, there is always the possibility that some senators will feel alienated from the agreement. It is also possible that on any given issue, a senator is so vehemently opposed to the proposal being offered that there is literally nothing that could be conceded in order to gain the dissident's blessing to move forward. Filibusters frequently occur under the latter two conditions.

When a member of the Senate makes the decision to filibuster, he or she will typically seek to identify other like-minded senators who agree to participate. Although filibusters through the mid-twentieth century were most often undertaken by individual senators (the record is held by the late Strom Thurmond (D-SC), who individually—but ultimately unsuccessfully—led a 24-hour and 18-minute filibuster against a mid-twentieth-century civil rights bill), the contemporary filibuster rarely resembles the filibuster made famous by the film Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. This is to the benefit of the filibusterer; previously, once the presiding officer recognized him or her, a senator leading a filibuster would be required to remain standing and continue talking for the entire duration of the filibuster. Not surprisingly, then, solo filibusters required significant amounts of stamina—and planning. For example, perhaps learning from Huey P. Long's mistake, to prepare for his 24-hour marathon session in 1957, Thurmond is said to have dehydrated himself to ensure that he would not have to relinquish the floor to take a bathroom break.