Filibuster Quotes

It seems as though there are Members in this body who want to filibuster just about everything we try to do, whether it is stopping judicial nominations, the Energy bill, or this Medicare bill.

The Dream Act and the DISCLOSE Act, to name two, had majorities in both chambers during Obama’s first term, but they were filibustered to death. They probably await a similar fate unless the filibuster is reformed.

Republicans have used the filibuster to turn the Senate into a de facto 60-vote body.

We’ve seen filibusters to block judicial nominations, jobs bills, political transparency, ending Big Oil subsidies – you name it, there’s been a filibuster.

President Barack Obama has it right – there is a lot to change about Washington. The problem is, not much will get changed unless we confront the runaway filibuster in the U.S. Senate.

It used to be in the Senate that if you were filibustering, you stood up. There was a physical dimension to it, that you – when you became exhausted you would have to leave the floor. That was the idea of the filibuster.

To be honest, I haven’t seen much serious budget planning since the Republicans took control of the House after the 2010 elections and grabbed onto the Senate filibuster. It’s not the White House’s fault that John Boehner couldn’t deliver on a bigger deal.

I think what Americans need and what Mainers need more than anything is government that functions and I think that the filibuster prevents us from functioning and making progress on issues.

My way of viewing the talking filibuster was as a way of doing unanimous consent with your feet. You object by going down and talking.

The filibuster is used more aggressively, so I think doing each individual appropriations bill through regular order would be a home run. But I think that we should try to hit a few singles.

The only tool the Democrats have is in the Senate, and it’s the filibuster.

We have promised to do better, and no Republican concern should ever be enough to filibuster our own bill.

As every newspaper reader, liberal activist, or parliamentary junkie knows, the overarching barrier to most of Obama’s agenda is the abuse of the filibuster in the Senate. In fact, several of Obama’s second term priorities are not ideas in search of a majority – they are majorities in search of an up-or-down vote.

There are two ways of looking at the talking filibuster. My way is as a form of unanimous consent.

Filibusters should require 35 senators to… make a commitment to continually debate an issue in reality, not just in theory. The number of votes needed to overcome a filibuster should be reduced to 55 from 60.

In the first 50 years of the filibuster, it was used only 35 times. But the last Congress alone had 112 cloture motions filed, plus threats of more.
This is the tyranny of the minority.

The filibuster is an affront to commonly understood democratic norms, but then so is the Senate.

President Obama had two Supreme Court nominees in his first term. There was no filibuster against them.

I have allowed the president to pick his political appointees…But I will not sit quietly and let him shred the Constitution.

If the choice is between universal health care or fixing our broken immigration system or upholding a 60-vote filibuster rule that is nowhere in the Constitution, I’m going to choose actually making progress for the American people.

We’ve always said a filibuster is not appropriate for judicial nominees. A filibuster is a legislative tool designed to extract compromises. A judicial nominee is a person. You can’t take the arm or leg of a nominee.

No one likes the Electoral College, expect perhaps those who were elected because of it. No one likes gerrymandering, except those doing the gerrymandering. No one likes the filibuster, except those doing the filibustering.

If Trump wins, the only thing blocking complete implementation of the programs of Trump, Paul Ryan, the Koch brothers, etc., is the Senate filibuster by the Democrats.

So I put that all together and I find it makes it hard to justify a filibuster.

My view of the filibuster is either you’ve got to lower vote edge or make people really filibuster if they feel that seriously about a piece of legislation.

I would never filibuster any President’s judicial nominee, period. I might vote against them, but I will always see they came to a vote.

It used to be in the Senate that if you were filibustering, you stood up, there was a physical dimension to it, that you when you became exhausted, you’d have to leave the floor. That was the idea of the filibuster.