I agree wholeheartedly. For one reason, alone this could be the most damaging filibuster for a political party in history. The reason is called cable news. Those folks would love to cover it 24-7. And I can't imagine the current crop of GOPers being coherent anywhere near that long.

Your suggestion is so brilliant and obvious that I can now only wait to hear the arguments against it. There's a reason voters under 40 have never even seen a real filibuster in progress. I barely recall ever even hearing about them happening and I'm in my 50s.
Forcing the Republicans to talk ad nauseum will also leave Obama and the Democrats less exposed to bogus right wing media attacks.

I would agree--but Harry Reid won't. The senate has a "gentlemen's" agreement that nobody actually has to stand up and talk endlessly to sustain a filibuster. That would be embarrasing. Instead, they just say that 60 members have to agree for anything to pass. Back in the late 1960's, the then owner of the Oakland Athletics suggested that to speed up baseball, the owners should eliminate intentional walks. Instead, just let a pitcher wave a batter to first. The traditionalists won that debate, and a pitcher still must throw four balls to walk a batter. In the US Senate, not so.

There is one facet of a filibuster that isn't appreciated. It used to be that the filibuster was reserved for cases where the minority believed that it's rights were being suppressed. And that was usually a euphemism for civil-rights legislation. Thus, the South was able to suppress civil rights legislation for years. And, to break a filibuster, the vote for cloture used to be two-thirds. Back in the Kennedy Administration, that was reduced to 60%. It was considered a great victory then.

But, the modern filibuster has morphed into something even worse than suppressing civil rights legislation. Now, it is used by the minority to suppress all legislation that doesn't agree with the Republican minority's platform. (When the Democrats were in the minority recently, they did not resort to filibusters all the time.) Now, the Republicans use it to block all legislation of significance. In the last two years, when the Democrats controlled the Senate by only 51 to 49 they could never invoke cloture. Now, with 58 or 59 Democrats, they can invoke cloture with the aid of only one or two Republicans.

What the filibuster has become is a tool for "minority rule." In the new Congress, the Democrats may have to invoke cloture with 60 votes time after time just to have the right to pass a bill by 51 to 49.

We'll see whether if Obama goes back to bipartisanship once the stimulus bill passes. But, the Republicans who are left in the Senate are the true believers. I'm afraid that they'll have to hold 60 votes for every bill even if they let some Senators vote "no" on final passage after cloture is invoked.

The seeming universal requirement of a super majority to pass ordinary legislation is not good for democracy. If the Democrats are back to, say, 55 to 45 after the 2010 elections, the ability to pass ordinary legislation may be gone again.

elderly, bleary-eyed, elderly Southern senators would have to keep on talking and talking -- trawling for increasingly incoherent things to say in front of CSPAN cameras

Back in the days when Senators actually did hold the floor for days on end to filibuster Civil Rights bills, there was no C-SPAN. I watched a filibuster in 1964, and it was pretty comical, rather boring, and not at all heroic. I don't think it would play very well on television.

Mr. Brin isn't the first nor the last to suggest this course of action. I would like to see the Democrats grow a pair and let the Repubs try and block a stimulus bill. I would think the Republicans could be portrayed as the destructive, self-centered interest group they really are.

But the Democrats are like an abused child or spouse; even though they know they have to fight back, they have been so beaten down it's almost impossibe for them to think of that. Democrats have to learn they do have something to offer and the Republicans and the news media don't control them. Easy to say, hard to do.

Hear, hear. Makes you wish they hadn't cut a bunch of good stuff from the bill that passed in the House, huh? Republicans would absolutely not try to filibuster or even vote down this bill--they're on the nation's shit list already, and don't want to be blamed for deepening the recession.

Massive fan of Earth - glad to see you posting here.

I wiil challenge your concept of "reasonable Republicans" - they proved themselves consistently UNreasonable throughout the Bush years, and they haven't learned their lessons yet.

Otherwise I agree completely - Reid and the Democrats are showing such signed of past abuse as to make them flinch each time the Republicans headfake in their direction.

There is NO downside to a GOP filibuster for the Dems.They should force the issue. They SHOULD but they won't.

Insured or ensured?

The interesting twist would be to play the filibuster chicken game now, and take the votes when the Republicans caved as their constituents flooded their phones and emails with death threats. Then watch 4+ Republican Senators fall in flames in the 2010 election. If Obama is playing politics that's what he would do. But I do believe he wants bipartisan support and the Republicans will soil themselves in the eyes of the voting public if they don't respond in like manner.

I agree that the use of a filibuster could backfire if it were allowed to really run its course. In fact, I could see Keith Olbermann or Rachel Maddow having a count of how much a filibuster had cost us in dollars just to emphasize the issue. It would probably be quite easy to make a mark for how much they were fussing about saving by whining about honey bees (which, incidentally, are a lot more important than many pundits have been acknowledging) ...

I don't think it will hurt to have a supermajority, or at least not have a narrow margin, but I'm not sure it's essential. It's worth the Democrats trying to get extra support if the Republicans are operating in good faith. But the Republicans seem to be engaging in fairly transparent and obstructionist gamesmanship, and that's injuring their likelihood of success and making it hard to find the few good messages they're offering amid other petty ones.

(I do think the filibuster has its place, by the way, just not here in the bailout debate. It offers essential balancing effect in the case of judicial appointments, for reasons I've outlined at my home site.)

I agree. Force the Republicans to filibuster. The Democrats must stop their practice of acquiescing to the mere threat of a filibuster. This legislation is the perfect vehicle to end that practice because everyone is looking.

Unfortunately I have zero confidence in Harry Reid.

I think you're right. The Dems have to face down the Republican minority, or else they won't be able to govern as elected to do.
I wish the original legislation was a better-crafted, purely keynesian attack (with an even bigger price tag, probably) on the economic paralysis, just to make stark how absurd the Republican obstructionism is in this case.

You are, of course, completely correct David but as others have said, making the Republicans actually filibuster would require the kind of leadership the Democrats have not had in the Senate for many years.

I keep SWEARING I can hear Lyndon Johnson spinning in his grave, about 50 or so miles west of where I'm typing this.

I think this comment from John Corriveau sums it up: But the Democrats are like an abused child or spouse; even though they know they have to fight back, they have been so beaten down it's almost impossibe for them to think of that.

It's so true. They're not ready for this fight. And the Rs know it. It is so frustrating. I watch it play out the same on the state level all the damn time.

A state legislator told me the other day that my bill wouldn't go unless it was strongly bi-partisan. I said, "Why??? I don't vote bi-partisan! I voted for you! For you guys to do what I want! To do the democratic thing! Not the a watered -down version of the democratic thing so you can please the minority party!"

aye yi yi

Unless something substantially different comes out of the Conference Comittee, it's the Left Wing of the Democratic Party that ought to filibuster, and I just wish Reid would really require them to do it.

Let Teddy pass out at the podium standing up against the pile of crap this package has become - let the people know how entirely misguided it is and how important it is that we get real solutions.

Currently, it's 42% tax cuts, and the majority of them (the 15,000 dollar home-buyer credit which will only create froth in the market ((no longer targeted to first time homebuyers) ), the insane car buying credit which does not encourage the purchase of clean and effecient vehicles) are in this lending climate only available to those with great credit - who don't really need a lot of help.

Clearing out some of the housing and auto inventories won't create much in the way of jobs, because it won't create demand going forward. For the cost of three 15,000 dollar tax credits, we could pay a teacher a good salary she would spend in the consumer economy for a year, or pay two young people a years wages as apprentices installing solar panels on schools.

If this package passes in its current form, Obama is going to be a Jimmy Carter one-term President. It's his, and no one (outside of the ubber-aware) will be blaming Republicans in three years for the soup lines and "Obamavilles".

All we have to do is ask whose predictions on economics have turned out to be right for the last decade and a half...and the resounding answer is Krugman. That's who we ought to be looking at for sensible advice on how to handle this, not people like Collins and Specter who - while they certainly are NOT know-nothing cultural warriors like Santorum or Delay and aren't the worst of the current pillage and privatize it all scavenger crows - still embrace the failed Trickle Down/Supply Side Reaganomics that created our last long-lasting recession.

Is compromise a good thing? Sure, when the result is not the US going the way South America did for 30 years. We stick with this bill as it stands, and we'll essentialy be the subject of an IMF takeover and lose control of what matters most in terms of having a government accountable to its people - the abilty to decide for our selves which allocations of resources we will choose to guide, and how we will guide them.

The people voted, resoundingly, to change direction. To have government take an active role in providing for two of FDRs four freedoms - Freedom from Fear, and Freedom from Want. If the Democratic Party passes this legislation in its current form, their failure to make good on providing for those freedoms will lead to the sort of whiplash in voter sentiment we saw in 1980.

In the long run, another six months of suffering without relief would be better than the passage of this "recovery" package. By then, we'd have another Bonus Army camped on the Mall, Franken in the Senate, and enough public outrage to crack at *least* Spector.

Getting this right is far, far more important than doing it fast. We can compromise with honest Republicans, directing some of that spending toward improving military housing, nuclear power (both of which have been done), and yes - even job-creating pork directed to their States that they can go home and brag about.

What we can't do is compromise with the failed ideology of Friedmanites. We know what to do, and we know what works.

This bill had become a "compromise" in which a medical team prescibes one asprin a day and a walk around the block, combined with a diet of nothing but sausage, to a heart patient with 90% occluded arteries.

You're very right, Mr. Brin. The Democrats really, desperately need to let the Republicans filibuster. I've been beating that drum for years, infuriated by each capitulation to the cloture vote mythology Harry Reid uses as an excuse to scuttle Democratic initiatives.

In this era when people are desperate for change, nothing would be better than for the Republicans to filibuster until they're blue in the face against the very things the rest of the country wants.

So long as Harry Reid serves as an enabler of the Republican minority, it will continue to make the Democrats look like part of the problem, not part of the solution.

His constituents really need to lean heavily on him, and if he fails, then everybody needs to lean on their Democratic Senators to try to push for Harry Reid to be ousted as Majority Leader. He needs to lead, follow, or get out of the way.

I wholeheartedly agree but don't think it will happen. Obama seems like the eternal diplomat, not the "face down" type:

"There is something to be said for having the Dems deal with the filibuster threat right up front, by calling the Republicans' bluff. Forcing the issue while the President is popular and the issues are stark would put the GOP on notice and also set the precedent that Obama is willing to face such threats down."

Quite my thoughts exactly. The republicans are on the wrong side of history. Their notion that they were just not conservative enought is their fatal error.
This first fight is the test.

I have nothing new to add but that I was glad to read the above and all comments (minus one). Here's to growing a pair.

I would invite it as well. The noob president needs to prove his statesmanship and master of the art of compromise. Finally, we're seeing representative democracy do what is should do: argue, conflict, compromise.

I don't have much faith in the stimulus bill. It might spark some state and municipal economies for the short term. Yet, the fiscal conservative on my right shoulder says you can't tax and spend your way out of a recession. You can offer only iodine, not steroids to help fix the economy.

Yep. I don't think the moderate Republicans are going to let the stimulus package -- or other sane legislation -- fail just to placate the now-weakened right wing. Of course, if the Democrats had better leadership in the Senate, they might know what to do with the power they've got. Surely there's someone better than Harry Reid for the job. Barbara Mikulski, maybe.

This isn't a recession like any other we've faced in the last 70 years - we've entered a deflationary spiral.

People aren't just losing jobs, wages and prices are dropping.

The only way to fix that is to inject liquidity, and since the Fed can't give money away in loans at under 1%, the only way to inject that liquidity is to spend.

It's got to be injected directly to the people who will spend it, and not to banks that will horde it. Currently, sitting on cash means a risk-free increase in wealth, so the banks have no reason to take any risk at all by lending.

We're long past steroids or iodine, we've got an overdosed junky on the table and it's time to break out the big adrenaline needle.

To put how bad this is in some perspective -

http://swampland.blogs.time.com/2009/02/06/how-bad-is-it/

Take a look at the chart.

Forget tax spend. What we have to do is spend.

"If the majority ever called that bluff, the minority would have to maintain a tiring, round-the-clock tag team blather festival, in which elderly, bleary-eyed, elderly Southern senators would have to keep on talking and talking -- trawling for increasingly incoherent things to say in front of CSPAN cameras -"

Bring it! And their food stamp collecting, Social Security and VA dependent, unemployed, underemployed, uninsured voters can WAIT for their outcome of this bill, along with the rest of us.

What kills me is that those Southern fools represent states that, for the most part, GET more federal tax dollars than they contribute!

Dear god, yes.

Wouldn't mind seeing it.

The repubs are only interested in what their money lender masters are interested in: reinflation of the economy's balloons. The car & home buying credits they champion are testimony enough of that. The dems have the same masters, so they will go along--plus add plums for their pets, the many & varied government-fed private contracting industries. All working merrily together to forestall the inevitable while continuing to redistribute all the cash they possibly can upwards before the whole ponzi scheme we call a "global economy" _really_ falls apart...

I do agree that the Democrats should call out the Republicans to filibuster. Funny how when the shoe was on the other foot and the Dem's threatened the filibuster, the Republican's became all indignant and threatened to eliminate the filibuster altogether.

Now, with C-Span, we should see some pretty funny filibuster clips on YouTube.

By the way, thanks for breaking your vow :-) Your loss is our gain.

I agree wholeheartedly and would love to hear what defense Limbaugh and his ilk would use for some of the inanity that the Republicans would say as they filibustered.
Ah, and then, what sweet satisfation when the Republicans fail...

I hate to make such a statement, but I can't believe that right at this moment in the violent USA, one of the most violent and gun-loving socieities on the planet, there isn't man out there with a gun headed to Washington right now, planning to shoot some Republicans. I mean it! I really cannot believe that won't happen! A man who has nothing to lose having lost his house, his job, his investments, his pension, everything....and now that Obama is trying to make good on his plan for the economy, the Republicans are going to stall it....their arrogance is amazing!!

I really fear there will yet be blood in the streets before long!!

I wonder what kind of chess game the administration is playing here. Are they giving enough rope to hang the Republicans? I think this is part of it.

If and when the Democrats call their bluff they can say that we have done everything we could and here we are. In the Congress there will be little change in the election for the party’s but there is a likelihood that the next one for the Republicans will see their losses increased.

I believe that Obama will let this go only so far before he puts the pressure on. This chess game is one the Republicans play to their disadvantage. If I were playing poker than playing their bluff by meeting their raises would be like money in the bank until you then call that bluff and then they would have less to show for their actions as they have spent what they have by betting from that small stash. It may become even more interesting.

Of course if you think the US Congress and Senate has a problem, take a look at California where a 66% majority is required to pass a budget. The Republicans here have just over a third of the seats in both houses of the legislature. Neither the Governor not the Democrats have been able to get not only a compromise piece of legislation passed regarding the budget, until recently the Republicans would even put proposals up for discussion. All they can say is no new taxes even though the deficit has grown to near $50 billion and increases daily with the interest charges. This is to the Republican fiscal responsibility.

The problem is also that because of gerrymandering all the Republicans are from safe districts so the flat earth attitude keeps them in office.

Calling the R's bluff meaning exactly what? Refusing to deal with them? Or consider and perhaps incorporate any suggestions they might have to improve the bill, sparse as those may be?

Perhaps this is a time when we could have a truly new start to our legislative process --- a time when those with truly different points of view work together to integrate those differing perspectives into a piece of legislation that is strengthened by having liberals, conservatives and moderates work hard together and produce something that reflects the best thinking of all parties.

Good post, I liked and rated it, even if one could say that I do not concur in your analysis. I apologize for length of response.
The filibuster is a Senatorial procedure for a reason, namely as a break on the will of the People if they are about to do something really dumb, like the Sicilian expedition that destroyed Athens.
The filibuster is not a Constitutional provision, but it is there to prevent Populist idiocy, and is in keeping with the clear purposes of the Senate.
For those of you who would like to abolish the filibuster, it is worth remembering that DeTocqueville worried that the lack of an aristocratic element in American goverment, and the now popularly elected Senate no longer counts much to that, would eventually produce a majoritarian despotism, an elected tryanny.
This Obama Messiah stuff makes me nervous on that point; he is smart and charismatic, not Jesus.
We had enough problems with that kind of fanaticism on the Right lately; Alcibiades was smart and charismatic and destroyed Athens.
There is one provision of the stimulus package that is in the realm of something really dumb, the Buy American provsions, and an overall feature that merits defeat, its fiscal sanity.
But then to be fair, the moron supply siders killed that for the Republicans for a while.
If it were the case that the stimulus package were to blow apart the global trading order as in the 1930's, and cause a cascade of beggar thy neighbor trade policies leading into World War Three, then the Senate would certainly be justified in using the filibuster. Please. That and the fact that the stimulus will hasten a Federal Bankruptcy within 35 months. Please. Pretty please, with a cherry on top?
That would be the grounds for a filibuster, although given the lack of historical and economic knowledge of the American population currently, the best strategy for the Right is probably to go to the American people and say this:
"You think Obama is the Messiah. We do not, but we will not stand in His way at all. You made your bed; now you can lie in it. We messed up with the Moron from Texas. We will repent and suffer quietly.In the meantime, We will prepare our response to the aftermath of a bankrupt federal government peeing away almost another trillion dollars and making this a Socialist country in the process, the consequences of which will be a hyperinflation, defeat in a Great Power War ( watch Afghanistan), and a lot worse, within 35 months. But don't worry, We will be ready to restore the country then. Until then, enjoy Obama Messiah."

And what happened to the so-called "Nuclear Option" that Democrats were so afraid of when the Republicans had the majority? Let's threaten the Republicans with that and have some fun.

It is funny, because I just posted an item, and at the end I talked about the nuclear option. I agree, as these children in the Senate are starting to piss me off with all their tantrum throwing fits, and they need to be spanked, in a political kind of way. And some of them in the House too.

This is all so very exciting to watch.
I was born in D.C. and I love politics. :)
It's especially fun to watch from Europe.

No one, including the orginal writer, fully explained the political theater of a filibuster. It does not take a few Republicans talking round the clock, it takes a team of between 12 and 16 scheduling one hour speeches constantly. Here's where it gets physical. The majority, Democrats, must maintain a quorum. This means a minimum of 51 senators must be available at all hours to answer the quorum calls--which are frequent. The Republicans don't have to worry about the quorum because if there is no quorum, they all go home and sleep. It is tedious and stressful for aged, and somewhat unhealthy Senators to have to sleep near the Senate floor and be awakened often. The reward comes, when the talking stops, an immediate vote takes place, and 51 votes are all that is required. How this would play on television in the modern age is anyone's guess--but it appears that the Democrats would look better in the process.

there is the possibility that the situation is so bad that the dems want rep cover for when' the stim' doesn't work. they may think the plebs won't hang both parties at once.

Love the idea. A filibuster can also be great theater, for anyone who remembers Jefferson Smith and his efforts to secure a campsite for the Boy Rangers back home. Those days are dead and gone -- if they ever existed -- today's Senate has no Jefferson Smiths, only a bunch of Joseph Paines.

If it were only so simple! But I have to aks...why keep political commentary to a minimum? A requirement of Open Salon or a personal commitment?
Those questions asked, shouldn't we as voters be concerned about the parts that make-up the stimulus? Should not the parts be greater than the whole? Is it possible based on the humongous amount of mis-information about the economy and why it's on a fast train to hell?
Inquiring minds would like to know.

Don Rich noted: "You think Obama is the Messiah."

Huh? Can you name any Democrats who have stated that Obama is the "Messiah?"

I can imagine there are a lot of people who are really, really happy that the guy was elected, and gush about it too enthuisastically. But really, if you've nervous about the "Obama Messiah thing," I suggest you stop listening to Talk Radio, which is the only place where that meme is peddled.

Allene asked: "But I have to aks...why keep political commentary to a minimum?"

On his blog, Dr. Brin mentioned that he was going to post less and concentrate more on his next novel.

Ram it down their throats, and make them swallow it. And anyone who got in the way gets NOTHING for his district. Not one penny in infrastructure spending gets directed his way.

When the mayor of any city in his district says, why didn't we get any you turn it around and say, well, your representative said you didn't need it, so we gave it to a district which did. Talk to him.

You make the enemy fight multiple battles on multiple fronts and he can't fight you as well. It's what did Hitler in. He had to fight a war on too many fronts and he spread his forces too thin.

Why are you the first writer to suggest this? It makes so much sense. Am I the only one who thinks we can do much better that Harry Reid? He seems like the wrong guy for the job right now?

Yes, the Republicans are scared to death of a filibuster and passage of the stimulus along strict party lines; they have so much to lose. Enjoy that 60% approval while it lasts. People already are beginning to see that this administration is just a dirty and corrupt and filled with the insider and lobbyist as all the rest. One slip in national defense, disaster relief (oops, we already sent poison food to Kentucky...imagine how you'd blame Bush for that), the failing of real stimulus production and the fraud that results from the funded programs, oh and the ever increasing national debt. Yes, things look so bleak for the Republicans.

David, I agree completely.
Johnny Mac, he's not the first one to make this argument, actually. And I'm sure I wasn't the first one, but I did write about it in this post, titled "58 (or 59?) Senators and the importance of the filibuster" from January 14th:

http://open.salon.com/content.php?cid=83014

I only got 3 thumbs on the post...

You know, it's funny to see a hypocritical liar like Citizen Miscarriage of Justice whine about the debt. Who was the dumb son of a bitch who took a surplus and turned it into a deficit? Who were the dumb punk ass beoatches who lied to us and told us that the tax cuts they wanted would pay for themselves? Who were the ignorant tools who inflated the debt from four trillion -- which was being paid down before they got their hands on the government -- to ten trillion?

Take off the damn skirt and stop cheerleading, Citizen Miscarriage of Justice. You ain't got the legs for it and you expose yourself as either a liar or a hypocrite or someone who doesn't know what the hell he is talking about.

I don't know which is worse but all three scenarios suck.

"calling themselves "heroic" for standing up against legislation that has the backing of a popular president and a large majority of Americans. "

According to the latest Gallup poll only 52% of Americans are in favor of the Economic baiolout as it currently sits. While this is a majority it isn't as you stated above a "large majority."

If the Dems don't take out some the the ridiculous spending proposals the Repubs, I think, could turn this to their advantage.

Don't take what you read here on OS as a sampling of a majority of Americans or even a sampling of democrats. We are far left leaning as a community.

Actually, John, the latest Gallup I heard had it pegged higher than you state. Also, I saw Obama live today in Indiana, and I think he is putting some large holes in the supposed "ridiculous spending" balloon that is kicked around in the media--all this spending has real purpose long term.

Then again, I'm just a liberal.

Well, just before I responded to your post i went to the Gallup site and got their latest poll numbers. And 52% approval is what they're saying.
And $100 million for auto racetrack owners, $2 million for makers of wooden arrows for children, $192 million for the rum industry (the list goes on) are pretty hard to paint as anything but bacon flavored earmarks.

As the long as the lions share of the cash goes straight to the pockets of the bottom four quintiles, it doesn't matter a damn bit if it's pork.

You voted for vandals, they took the handles, and the pump don't work. We need cash circulating - all else is distraction.

While only 52% of the public support the current bill, you're absolutely gibbering mad if you think that the 48% percent who do not support it are, like you, concerned about whether a couple million get wasted on race-track owners. You need to withdraw your head from the asshole of the noise machine.

A quarter of us actually recognize how far down into this hole you and the people you voted for shoved us, and realize that ladder which goes halfway up the side won't cut it as the pit fills with water.

Marc: I'm not sure that what you wrote makes sense even to YOU!

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