Is There No End to Delays in Senate? Try a <i> Real </i> Filibuster

In the name of reform, two experts on Congress are proposing reviving the old-fashioned filibuster, characterized by endless oratory and weary senators who scrambled from cots to answer pre-dawn roll calls.

Norman J. Ornstein of the American Enterprise Institute and Thomas E. Mann of Brookings Institution are urging the Senate to once again require around-the-clock sessions to respond to filibusters. It’s the sensible way, they say, to discourage the increasingly frequent use of such delaying tactics.

All too often, the filibuster has held the Senate “hostage to the whims of individual senators” on both major and minor legislation, the two scholars complained in a recent report on renewing Congress.

Senate Republicans used their 43 votes earlier this year to prevent a vote on President Clinton’s economic stimulus package, which ultimately resulted in its demise.

As Senate Majority Leader George J. Mitchell (D-Me.) put it: “We have now reached the stage where we say, well, another week in the U.S. Senate, another filibuster.”

The filibuster, which is an outgrowth of the Senate’s cherished tradition of permitting unlimited debate, can be used by a minority party to derail a piece of legislation it opposes but cannot defeat outright.

In a classic filibuster--frequently used throughout history to stall action on civil rights bills--senators tie up the chamber in continuous debate to prevent a vote.

Another favorite technique has been to demand frequent quorum calls to demonstrate that a majority of the Senate is present to conduct business. That tactic requires proponents of the disputed legislation to keep at least 51 senators on hand near the Senate floor, at all hours of the day and night, to answer the roll.

Without a quorum, the Senate would be forced to adjourn, providing fresh opportunities for delay at the start of a new legislative day.

Ever since 1917, the Senate has been able to squelch filibusters by resorting to cloture, or a vote to end the debate--a move that requires a super-majority of senators, originally two-thirds of all senators but now only three-fifths, or 60.

If cloture is approved, debate on a specific piece of legislation is limited to 100 hours. Even so, ingenious lawmakers have been able to devise post-cloture “filibusters by amendment”--offering hundreds of meaningless amendments and demanding roll call votes on each--that also blocked action for days at a time.

Since the mid-1960s, the Senate generally has avoided all-night sessions to respond to filibusters, preferring to operate on a two-track system that allows action on other measures while the target of the delaying effort remains stalled.

Sen. Robert C. Byrd (D-W.Va.) once characterized this arrangement as the “casual, gentlemanly, good-guy filibuster. . . . Everybody goes home and gets a good night’s sleep, and everybody protects everybody else.”

Mitchell has stuck by the two-track system, refusing to use his authority to order all-night sessions. But he has been increasingly frustrated by Republican slowdown tactics and “he may have to reconsider,” a spokeswoman said.

Ornstein and Mann contend that it’s time for a change. Otherwise, they point out, the mere threat of a filibuster can raise the number of votes needed to pass a bill from a simple majority of 51 to 60, the number required to shut off debate.

“We recommend that the Senate return the filibuster to its classic model--if a senator declares a filibuster on an issue, he or she should be prepared for extended and continuous debate, day and night, while all other business gets put on hold,” they said.

But many observers believe that the culture of individualism in the Senate--called “prima donna-ism” by Ornstein--would make it impossible to get the kind of teamwork needed to break a filibuster.

“The idea of senators sleeping on cots outside the chamber has gone by the wayside,” said Senate Historian Richard Baker.