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How well do you know the Filibuster?

Take the quiz and read the answers

Choose one or more, or supply the correct answer:

  1. When do 41 Senators’ votes count more than 59?
    1. When the smaller group is louder than the bigger in a voice vote.
    2. Only when the filibuster is in effect.
  2. Where does the name “filibuster” come from?
      1. Racetrack slang for training a female horse
      2. Dutch word for Pirate
      3. Old English for “thwart
  3. Is the filibuster in the Constitution and in what year was it adopted?
    1. Yes, in 1788
    2. No, year not applicable
  4. Why does the Senate but not the House employ the filibuster? Which is/are true?
    1. The Senate has a tradition of “unlimited debate,” the House doesn’t.
    2. The House has adopted various rules to limit speech, often only 5 minutes.
    3. With 435 members who may want to speak, the House is forced to be efficient.
  5. Key times to filibuster are: at the motion to proceed to discussion on the floor, the motion to vote on the bill, actual voting on final passage.
    1. True
    2. False
  6. Who gave the longest filibuster speech on record to date?
    1. Huey Long
    2. Jefferson Smith
    3. Strom Thurmond
  7. When was the requirement to speak on the Senate floor eliminated?
    1. 1970s
    2. 2010
  8. The filibuster has been used to stop legislation in the past 5 years by:
    1. Only one party
    2. Both parties
  9. Which are current exemptions to the filibuster?
    1. Budget reconciliation
    2. Executive branch nominations
    3. Supreme Court nominations
  10. Should the filibuster be ended? Why or why not?
    1. ___________________________________________
Quiz Answers:
  1. Both can be true. But any Senator may call for a “division” vote where Senators are asked to stand and be counted to clarify a voice vote,.
  2. Dutch for “freebooter” or Pirate. The word was first used in the 1850s to describe “talking to death” a bill.
  3. No, it’s not in the Constitution or any amendments (1789 onwards). Senate Rule 22 was adopted in 1917 because the Senate had become larger and needed to become more efficient while still ensuring the Senate tradition of “unlimited debate.” Originally 2/3 of the Senate was required to end a filibuster, called “cloture.” In 1975 that requirement was lowered to 3/5 or 60 Senators.
  4. The Senate has a tradition of unlimited debate, but the House relies on its rules that limits speech ever since 1841. Now time varies by “rule” but is frequently only 1 to 5 minutes.
  5. Key times are to filibuster the motion to proceed to discussion on the floor, filibuster the motion to vote on the bill, then vote on final passage plus any amendments. (See table on next page.)
  6. Huey Long spoke for 15 hours, 30 minutes in 1935 to oppose a program in The New Deal. Not the Senator in “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington,” a 1939 film. Strom Thurmond spoke for 24 hours, 18 minutes to oppose the 1957 Civil Rights Act.
  7. In the 1970s, an efficiency committee proposed scheduling “two tracks” for bills, one time slot for highly contentious bills and another time for ordinary ones. Thus, it became possible for a Senator to stop consideration of a bill by simply requesting a “hold” on sending it to the floor or ending debate.
  8. Both. In 2019 Democrats blocked funding for Pres. Trump’s border wall. In October 2021 and January 2022 Republicans used the filibuster to stop the For the People John Lewis and Voting Rights Acts.

[Historical note on less partisan times:  Southern Democrats filibustered the 1965 Civil Rights Act. The bill only passed because the Republican Senate Leader, Everett Dirksen, recruited fellow Republican civil rights advocates to support President Johnson’s bill despite it being an election year. And President Johnson, a Texas Democrat, signed the bill despite knowing that many “Dixiecrats” would leave his party. See How the ‘Party of Lincoln’ Won Over the Once Democratic South.]

  1. The big exemptions from the filibuster include “budget reconciliation,” Executive Branch nominations and most recently, Supreme Court Justice nominations.
  2. Good question. The filibuster allows a minority of Senators to block popular bills. It also allows a minority to block “unjust” bills. Many people argue that Rules like the House uses are sufficient. Opponents of the filibuster argue that the nation’s founders intended for the Senate to employ a simple majority (“each Senator shall have one vote”), and furthermore that when the 17th Amendment (1913) changed election of Senators by State Legislatures to state voters, it retained two Senators per State with 6-year terms, and that each Senator shall have one vote.
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