After watching the Republican minority in the U.S. Senate abuse the filibuster to the point of it being meaningless for the last 3 years, what Wendy Davis did 2 nights ago took on an extraordinary context. Rather than simply invoke the silent filibuster and sit there while jobs don't get created, Texas state Senator Davis stood up and talked.
And talked.
And talked.
For 11 hours.
That's almost half a day without eating or sitting or even exiting the senate chamber to use the bathroom.
No, it's not a record by any means -- the longest filibuster in U.S. history is courtesy of Strom Thurmond, who spent 24 hours and 18 minutes running his mouth in an unsuccessful attempt to kill the Civil Rights Act of 1957 -- but it's nothing to sneeze at.
First, before I get too involved, have a short civics lesson. The filibuster is a check on majority power in the Senate by allowing the minority to kill a bill by running out the clock so it can't be voted on before the session ends. Before 2010, this technique was brutal. You had to talk, and you were not allowed to leave the Senate floor for any reason, and it takes 60 votes to shut you up. After 2010, the rules changed to allow the "silent filibuster," which required no talking, nor even for the Senator who invoked it to be present for its duration.
The rules in Texas are still the old-school rules. If you want to kill a bill that badly, you have to fight for it. The idea being that if a Senator truly cares about not getting this legislation passed, they will endure it. And fight Davis did, for 11 goddamned hours. More importantly, she won. At least for now, until Perry calls his special session and the bullshit parade starts all over again.
My point is that the other night, Wendy Davis showed us what a filibuster is supposed to do and the right way to use it, versus the cowardly shit her Congressional Republican counterparts have been pulling the last three years. Clogging up the system with nonsense filibusters they don't even have to be present for purely out of spite to the point that routine business stops, because how dare they have to concede final authority to a black guy.
Wendy Davis, while wearing a back brace and pink running shoes, displayed more spine than nearly half of the current U.S. Senate. Simply by refusing to shut up or sit down until she was forced to.
The problem we have with the filibuster being abused in the national Senate is because it's easier to hold one. There's been a lot of talk of filibuster reform, and I think besides limiting the number of them per year, the most important change would be to do away with the silent filibuster altogether. If you want to fight a bill, then fucking fight it and make your colleagues shut you down. If you walk away, you throw in the towel. Because if killing the bill is that important to you, you won't. You will stay there for the people who elected you, because you owe them that much.
Senator Davis more than repaid the people in her district. Let's see just how many U.S. Senators would be far too apathetic to do the same. Maybe then, Congress can actually get something done for once.
No comments:
Post a Comment