All it takes is one Senator — ONE — to filibuster. It takes sixty — 60 — to stop a filibuster. In the bad old days of anti-civil rights filibusters, Senators once held up all Senate business for 57 days, trying to stop the 1964 Civil Rights Act. {alt url: }

Harry Reid had cots brought into the Senate for an all-night session in July when the Republicans started to filibuster the Iraq pullout bill, but he caved when the first cloture vote was lost. Where was the Democratic leadership? Why didn’t they force the Republicans to really filibuster and expose them the way the Civil Rights Dems exposed the racists in 1964?

When John Kerry blew off even being present to vote on the FISA bill, he showed how little the political process of debate — and standing up for what he believes — means to him. He didn’t have to be the one who filibustered the FISA bill, but the fact that none of the Democrats did is atrocious. The excuse, “His vote wouldn’t make a difference,” is not the point. “His voice wouldn’t have swayed anyone” — which is a pathetic situation — is not the point. The point of being a Senator defending Constitutional protection of speech is just that — to defend, to be there, to speak out. He failed.

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addendum: similar views on the filibuster were expressed in a post on DailyKos: The Filibuster: now painless and more convenient than ever!, 20 September 2007. The next day, a NY Times editorial, In Search of a Congress, said:

We support the filibuster as the only way to ensure a minority in the Senate can be heard. When the cloture votes failed this week, the Democrats should have let the Republicans filibuster. Democratic leaders think that’s too risky, since Congress could look like it’s not doing anything. But it’s not doing a lot now.

The country needs a lot more debate about what must be done to contain Iraq’s chaos and restore civil liberties sacrificed to Mr. Bush’s declared war on terrorism.