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

moreover, few telltale signs that provide definitive proof that a filibuster is taking place.

Part of the difficulty with identifying filibusters is that the definition of filibuster has changed over time, and usage of the word has also varied based on contextual factors. Binder and Smith (1997), for instance, drew distinctions between “manifest” and “non-manifest” filibusters. Fisk and Chemerinsky (1997) discussed “traditional,” “silent,” and “stealth” filibusters. At some times (15), but not at others (183), Wawro and Schickler (2006) used both filibuster and obstruction to refer to similar behavior. Throughout the latter half of the nineteenth century, members of the House and Senate also used the two terms interchangeably. One previous study has noted that in its original sense, filibuster “referred to any lengthy speech rather than an overt, concerted effort to talk a bill to death” (Beeman 1968, 420).

Identifying filibusters is challenging, especially in early Congresses, because there are so many ways to define the term. Adding insult to injury, for those seeking to understand the dynamics of filibustering, is the fact that filibusterers often claim not to be filibustering, instead asserting that offering dozens of non-germane amendments to a piece of legislation is simply to “perfect” the bill, or claiming that their lengthy soliloquies are genuine efforts at persuading their colleagues. For example, on June 13, 1989, Senator Orrin Hatch spoke at length against the Family and Medical Leave Act, but at one point vociferously denied filibustering the legislation. This, and similar such instances, raises the question of whether lengthy debate, which in every way appears to be a filibuster, can actually be one when the speaker specifically denies filibustering. As Sinclair (2002, 242–243) put it, “[w]hen lengthy debate becomes a filibuster is, in part, a matter of judgment.” Identifying filibusters, therefore, depends not only on identifying the markers of a filibuster (e.g., lengthy debate, a refusal to yield the floor to colleagues) but also, as noted earlier, on knowing something of the potential filibusterer's intent.

Even those who have previously attempted to catalog filibusters have lamented the difficulty with doing so and have offered caveats at the time of publication of their work. For example, Burdette (1940, vii)