Many Americans\nsee the next four years as a time for healing, uniting, and progress in the\nUnited States.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Biden Administration has a full\nagenda as it tries to control the pandemic, spearhead the economic recovery,\naddress climate change, expand healthcare, and reform immigration and the\njustice system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
With Democrats in control of the Senate\nand House of Representatives for at least the next two years, hopes are high\nfor the majority of Americans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Unfortunately, there is something that\nlays in the way of progress.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The\nFilibuster<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The filibuster is the ultimate tool of\nobstruction in the U.S. Senate. In the Senate, senators have the ability to\nfilibuster legislation, which allows them to speak on the floor for unlimited\ntime and block that legislation from moving forward to a vote.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The filibuster, in its simplest form, is\na political tool that gives the minority party the ability to stop the majority\nparty from legislating. There are many reasons senators use a filibuster, but\nmost of the reasons revolve around a political purpose and, unfortunately, the\nfilibuster has a dark history.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For example, during the civil rights era,\nSouthern senators used the filibuster to block civil rights and other\nlegislation that tried to create equality in the U.S.<\/p>\n\n\n\n To stop a senator from filibustering, 60\nsenators, out of 100, need to vote in favor of cloture — which would end\ndebate. The problem with this is Congress is extremely polarized and it is\nalmost impossible to get 60 senators to end the filibuster.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The current makeup of the Senate is 50-50\nwith Vice President Kamala Harris breaking the tie and giving the majority to\nthe Democrats. If the Republicans wanted to, they could essentially block all\nmajor legislation for at least the next two years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And, in case you are wondering, the\nlongest filibuster ever by a U.S. legislator lasted 24 hours and 18 minutes,\nand the longest filibuster by a group of senators lasted 75 days. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Nuclear option<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The way to end the filibuster altogether\nis called the nuclear option, which allows the party in control of the Senate\n— right now the Democrats — to use a simple majority (51 votes) to end the\nfilibuster on legislation. This option has been utilized by Republicans and\nDemocrats on things such as nominees for the Supreme Court, executive\npositions, and judicial nominees.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Why ending the filibuster is the right thing to do<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Many people argue that ending the\nfilibuster will essentially eliminate opposing views and the minority party.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The truth is, our Senate and presidency\nwere established on the idea of the minority view. In the Senate, the states of\nWyoming and California have the same number of senators even though California\nhas more than 39 million people and Wyoming only has 600,000 people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The president is elected through the\nElectoral College, which in recent years has given the minority the ability to\noverrule the majority of Americans in selecting the president (Al Gore in 2000\nand Hillary Clinton in 2016 won the popular vote and lost the Electoral\nCollege). <\/p>\n\n\n\n The Senate is a body that hardly votes,\nand when it does, it is not on the issues that many Americans have a concern\nwith such as healthcare, the environment or gun control. The threat of the\nfilibuster and both political parties\u2019 antics have created a non-working body. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The majority of Americans voted for the\ncurrent balance of power and deserve to have their concerns addressed. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Let\u2019s remove one roadblock to solving\ntoday\u2019s issues — the filibuster.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Bradley DeMers is a senior studying political science at FHSU. He is a former Student Government Association president and has worked for politicians in both main political parties.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Many Americans see the next four years as a time for healing, uniting, and progress in the United States. The Biden Administration has a full… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":58265,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[55,6101],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-58264","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-opinion","category-talking-democracy"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/tigermedianet.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/OPED-SENATE-FILIBUSTER-HERITAGE-COMMENTARY-GET.jpg?fit=1600%2C1067&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58264","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=58264"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58264\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":58266,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58264\/revisions\/58266"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/58265"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=58264"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=58264"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=58264"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}