Midwest Almanac writes articles on government and public policy. You might be asking, what are public policy issues and how do they affect me? The articles, videos and reports we present are designed to help you easily understand the regulations, laws and legislation, as well as the funding priorities that our government and politicians use to address social policy issues. The public policy issues we cover include: information on the environment, the economy, health care, the federal budget, jobs and wages and issues that affect our families amongst other the many other common concerns we all share.
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Filibuster: Why The Senate Can't Get Anything Done
Americans are frustrated to no end by the gridlock in Congress. What's going on? The Senate and the House have processes to introduce, debate and then vote to pass legislation or bills. Since the early days of our republic,
filibuster has been used by the minority party to frustrate the passage of legislation against their interests. Filibuster attempts to delay or use obstructive tactics to prevent a measure from being brought to a vote. Senate rules allow a senator, or a series of senators, to speak for as long as they wish and on any topic they choose, unless "three-fifths of the Senators duly chosen and sworn" (usually 60 out of 100 senators) brings the debate to a close by invoking cloture under Senate Rule XXII. To end filibuster, 2/3rds of the Senators "present and voting" must vote to invoke "cloture" to bring an end to a filibuster debate. Historic use of the filibuster includes when Senator Huey Long used it to promote his liberal policies in the 1930s by reciting Shakespeare and reading recipes for "pot-likkers" for 15 hours. Another notable filibuster of the 1960s occurred when southern Democratic senators attempted, unsuccessfully, to block the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 by making a filibuster that lasted for 75 hours, which included a 14 hour and 13 minute address by Democrat Senator Robert Byrd. On March 6th, 2013, Senator Rand Paul launched a talking filibuster to stall John Brennan's nomination confirmation vote for the position of Director of the CIA, demanding an answer from the Obama Administration to the question: "Should a President be allowed to target, and kill an American by drone attack, on American soil, without due process?" John Brennan was considered to be the main architect of the drone program. After 12 hours and 52 minutes of talking, it became the 9th longest filibuster in U.S. history.
So you tell me what's more productive - meaningful and substantive debate on the merits of legislation or some Senator wasting time on giberish totally unrelated to the nation's business. Democrats and liberal interest groups have proposed reforms that include ending the filibuster completely; banning the use of filibusters on the motion to proceed; re-introducing the "talking filibuster" where the minority would have to remain on the Senate floor and speak in order to impede passage of a vote; banning the use of filibusters on House-Senate conferences; and forcing the minority to produce 41 votes in order to block cloture. The Brennan Center for Justice has several interesting reports on the impacts of the filibuster on the proper functioning of the Senate including "Filibuster Abuse" and other reports.
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Americans are frustrated to no end by the gridlock in Congress. What's going on? The Senate and the House have processes to introduce, debate and then vote to pass legislation or bills. Since the early days of our republic, 
