Perspective: Elizabeth Warren’s historically sound case against the filibuster
Sen. Elizabeth Warren affirmed her opposition to the filibuster at the National Action Network's annual convention in New York. By Julian Zelizer Julian Zelizer is a political historian at Princeton University. He is co-author of"Fault Lines: A History of the United States Since 1974." April 17 at 10:46 AM Presidential candidate Sen.
Protectors of congressional “norms” will oppose Warren’s proposal, but the truth is that the filibuster — a 19th-century invention unmentioned in the Constitution — is an anti-majoritarian tool within an institution that already favors the minority. In the 1920s and ‘30s, a conservative coalition of Southern Democrats and Republicans depended on the filibuster to stop anti-lynching bills, and they continued to use it to slow progress on civil rights. Warren was spot on when she observed this month that the filibuster had led to “an entire century of obstruction because a small group of racists stopped the entire nation from doing what was right.” The policies being obstructed have changed, but the structural problem remains the same.
Filibusters were abhorred by pro-civil-rights liberals. Writing in the New Republic, Sen. Paul Douglas observed that the filibuster might seem to be “a barren and arid matter of parliamentary procedure,” yet on its existence turned “the whole question as to whether Congress will ever be able to pass civil rights legislation.
In 1957, Sen. Strom Thurmond conducted the longest-ever filibuster, 24 hours and 18 minutes, against a watered-down civil rights bill. It eventually passed under Senate Majority Leader Lyndon Johnson’s direction, but the filibuster gave Southerners enough leverage to pressure Johnson into abandoning vital elements of the legislation, such as strong enforcement mechanisms for voting rights.
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