| Chapter 1: | Introduction |
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engage in filibustering (or at the very least, support or oppose the same piece of legislation), particularly if the two senators were from the same political party. And yet, as the analyses I present later in this chapter demonstrate, there are only a handful of instances in which both senators elected from a single state have joined together to lead a filibuster. The drama of the filibuster, combined with the public's lack of robust understanding of the procedure and scholarly treatments that have only partially explained its use and impact on the Senate, has allowed a mythology of the filibuster to emerge over the course of the last half century. In actual practice, Senate filibusters are rare events, and yet, as one of the few devices of legislative procedure ever discussed in the media, it is suggested that senators engage in filibustering frequently. Filibusters are often described as anti-majoritarian, and it is true that they are employed frequently to delay or defeat an item of pending business that enjoys the support of a majority of senators. At the same time, filibusters have also been used to delay or kill legislation that was—or probably would be—unacceptable to a majority of the public. Filibusters have been described as the tactic of choice for cabals of senators on the fringes of their political parties in the chamber, and yet, for every filibuster led by a senator on the partisan periphery, there is a filibuster led by either the majority leader or the minority leader; this demonstrates that filibusters are not simply tools that backbenchers use to frustrate the chamber leadership. Some recent studies have suggested that filibustering is now nearly “costless.” As the days of the lone senator leading the round-the-clock filibuster are long gone, filibusters no longer tie the Senate chamber up in knots or prevent Senate business from being transacted. In the last several years, the number of actual filibusters has declined significantly—no matter what the popular press would have the public believe.
The effect of the filibuster has been equally mythologized; in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Jimmy Stewart's filibuster is portrayed as heroic—an example of a lone senator speaking truth to power on behalf of his constituents and his country. In recent years, however, the filibuster has been vilified as a primary threat to the ability of the American government to