autocracy. It is justified by the nature of our governmental system of separated powers. 6. The constitutional requirement for recording the yeas and nays is a protection of dilatory tactics. The provision of the Constitution which requires the yeas and nays to be recorded in the Journal at the desire of one-fifth of the Members present is an intentional safeguard allowing the minority to delay proceedings. 7. Majority cloture in the Senate would destroy its deliberative function and make it a mere annex of the House of Representatives. 8. Simple majority cloture would have brought many a decision which would have accorded ill with the sober second thought of the American people. 9. The Senate, without majority cloture, actually passes a larger percentage of bills introduced in that body than does the House of Representatives, with cloture. 10. To enforce cloture by vote of a chance majority in the Senate might bring greater loss than gain. 11. Filibusters are justifiable whenever a great, vital, fundamental, constitutional question is presented and a majority is trying to override the organic law .of the United States. Under such circumstances, Senators as ambassadors of the States in Congress have a duty to protect the rights of the States. ARGUMENTS AGAINST FILIBUSTERING 1. Under the practice of filibustering, the basic American principle of majority rule is set at naught. Not only is the majority thwarted in its purpose to enact public measures, it is also coerced into acceptance of measures for which it has no desire or approval. 2. The Senate should legislate efficiently, with responsibility only to the people. If the Senate is to be efficient, time should not be wasted in unnecessary delay merely for the sake of obstruction. Filibusters sometimes make special sessions of Congress imperative, with resulting unnecessary expense to the people and business uncertainty in the country. They also destroy responsibility of the majority party to the people. 3. Experience abroad and in the State legislatures indicates that debate can be limited without undemocratic results. 4. The constitutional provision that "the yeas and nays of the Members of either House on any question shall, at the desire of one-fifth of those present, be entered on the Journal" requires an immediate vote when the yeas and nays have been properly demanded. 5. Filibustering gives one Senator or a little group of Senators a veto power. It enables a handful of men in the Senate to prevent the passage of legislation desired by the overwhelming majority of the Members of Congress and the country. It permits one Senator to hold up needed appropriations until he extorts the favor that he demands for his State. 6. Filibusters have delayed for decades the enactment of social legislation passed by the House of Representatives and desired by a majority of the American people. Many people are losing faith in American democracy because of its repeated and prolonged failures to perform its implicit promises. Responsibility for these failures lies in large part at the door of Senate filibusters. 7. They arouse popular resentment and bring the Senate into disrepute at home and abroad. 8. Filibusters cost the taxpayers thousands of dollars, consuming days and weeks of valuable time and many pages of the Congressional Record at $71 a page. 9. They impose upon the Senate an indignity which would not be tolerated in any other legislative chamber in the world. 10. The present cloture rule (rule XXII) is so cumbersome as to be unworkable. It has been successfully invoked only 4 out of 19 times in 31 years, the last time being in 1927. 11. Free speech would not be abolished in the Senate by majority cloture because, under the proposed amendment, adequate opportunity to deliberate upon a measure would be afforded during the prepetition stage plus the 2-day interval between the presentation of the cloture petition and the vote upon it, plus the 96 potential hours of debate allowed after cloture has been invoked. 12. Scores of appropriation bills and much meritorious legislation have been defeated or delayed by filibusters in the past. 13. Filibusters are undemocratic, in that they permit one-third of the Senators present, plus one, to obstruct the majority. This group of Senators may be from only one section of the country, they may be from only one political party, and none of them may have been recently elected. It is a dubious argument to defend the filibuster on the ground that it protects the minority when actually its principal use, actual or potential, is to deny fundamental democratic rights to certain minorities. Most of the really undemocratic conditions in our country today exist because of the threat or use of the filibuster. 14. An effective antifilibuster rule ought to exist because (a) it is the imperative duty of a legislature not merely to debate but to legislate and, therefore, to tolerate no course of action by any of its Members which will absolutely prevent legislation; (b) the majority is and must be held responsible for the conduct of affairs and is, therefore, entitled to use all means proper and necessary for the conduct of affairs; and (c) the vast and steadily increasing volume of business thrust on Congress renders it essential that not one moment of time be consumed uselessly. REMEDIES FOR DILATORY TACTICS IN THE SENATE " 1. Amend rule XXII to provide for cloture by majority vote of the total membership of the Senate, or by a majority of those present, applicable to any motion, measure, or other matter pending, after unlimited debate for a specified number of days. 2. Adopt a rule providing for use of the motion for the previous question (as the House does) by which all further debate upon a matter may be terminated by a majority vote of the Chamber. 3. Adopt a rule that debate and amendments must be germane to the subject under consideration. 4. Limit duration of debate on bills by special orders as the House does. 5. Enforce the existing rules of the Senate by: (a) Requiring the speaker to stand and not to sit or walk about. (b) Taking a Senator "off his feet" for using unparliamentary language. (c) Making a point of order against frequent quorum calls that no business has intervened since a roll call disclosed the presence of a quorum. (d) The Chair making drastic rulings against dilatory motions, on points of order raised from the floor. (e) Objecting to reading a paper (Rule XI). 6. Enforce rule XIX that "no Senator shall speak more than twice upon any one question in debate on the same day without leave of the Senate, which shall be determined without debate." 7. Enforce the provision of Jefferson's Manual that "No one is to speak impertinently or beside the question, superfluously, or tediously." 8. Let the Chair reverse the precedent, established in 1872, that a Senator cannot be called to order for irrelevancy in debate. 9. Let the Chair make a wise use of the power of recognition as between simultaneous claimants (rule XIX, clause 1). 10. Let there be objection to yielding the floor, even though the Senator who has the floor consents to an interruption. 11. Resort to prolonged or continuous sessions. LIMITATION OF DEBATE IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 1. Debate in the House of Representatives is prohibited on a large number of parliamentary motions. Cannon lists 30 questions and motions which are not debatable at pages 143-144 of his Procedure in the House of Representatives, fourth edition. 2. General limitations: (a) Since 1789 no Member has been allowed to speak more than once to the same question without leave of the House unless he be the mover, proposer, or introducer of the matter pending (rule XIV, clause 6). (b) Since 1841 no Member has been allowed to occupy more than 1 hour in debate on any question in the House or in Committee of the Whole (rule XIV, clause 2). 11 As proposed by United States Senators from time to time through the years. (c) Since 1789 it has been possible to shut off debate and bring the matter under consideration to an immediate vote by the motion for the previous question (rule XVII). (d) Since 1789 Members engaging in debate have been required to confine themselves to the question under consideration, except during general debate in the Committee of the Whole on the State of the Union (rule XIV, clause 1). (e) Since 1789 no Member has been permitted to take the floor or engage in debate until he has been recognized by the Chair (rule XIV, clause 2). (f) Since 1883 time for general debate in Committee of the Whole has been limited by special orders reported by the Committee on Rules and adopted by the House (rule XXIII, clause 5). (g) Since 1847 and 1850 debate upon amendments to a pending bill has been limited by the 5-minute rule (rule XXIII, clause 5). (h) Since 1880 debate has been limited to 40 minutes under suspension of the rules (rule XXVII). MEMORANDUM BY SENATOR HAYDEN Bills listed as "legislation defeated by filibusters" after 1917 in Limitation of Debates in the United States Senate, by George B. Galloway, showing subsequent action by Congress on the same or similar measures Title Passed Senate An act to promote the mining of coal phosphate, oil, oil shale, gas and sodium on the Sept. 3, 1919; conference report An act to more effectively meet the obligations of the United States under the migra- Instructing the special committee created by S. Res. 195, 69th Cong., 1st sess., to An act making eligible for retirement, under certain conditions, officers and former Authorizing the Secretary of the Treasury to acquire certain lands within the Dis- To amend the subdivisions b and e of sec. 11 of the Immigration Act of May 26, 1924 Creating a special committee to investigate crude oil prices and certain other matters To regulate interstate and foreign commerce in petroleum and its products by prohibiting the shipment in such commerce of petroleum and its products produced in violation of State law, and for other purposes. To provide for the safer and more effective use of the assets of Federal Reserve banks and of national banking associations, to regulate interbank control, to prevent the undue diversion of funds into speculative operations, and for other purposes (Glass Banking Act, 1933). agreed to (66th Cong., 2d sess.), Feb. 11, 1920. 45 Stat. 1222. Apr. 18, 1928; House amendment Feb. 18, 1929 Public Law 770, approved Feb. 11, 1929. Agreed to Dec. 12, 1927. Dec. 14, 1928. Amended and passed Mar. 15, Jan. 18, 1935; conference report Feb. 22, 1935 agreed to Feb. 22, 1935. Jan. 25, 1933; failed of enactment, short session. May 25, 1933 (amended); con- June 16, 1933 ference report agreed to June 13, 1933. Bills listed as "legislation defeated by filibusters" after 1917 in Limitation of Debates in the United States Senate, by George B. Galloway, showing subsequent action by Congress on the same or similar measures-Continued Title Making appropriations to provide urgent supplemental appropriations for the fiscal Wording the same as H. R. 9215 except "June 30, 1935" changed to read "June 30, Making appropriations for relief purposes. The McCarran amendment providing To regulate interstate commerce in bituminous coal, and for other purposes (coal Same title. To provide for the appointment of fact-finding boards to investigate labor disputes seriously affecting the national public interest, and for other purposes (Case strikecontrol bill, 1946). |