One of the most common assignment desks is recent weeks has been on the filibuster: Why, you ask, doesn't Reid just make the GOP talk all night? Ryan Grim looked into this and obtained a memo Reid's office wrote on the Senate rules. The problem, Reid's people concluded, is that the Republicans wouldn't have to talk. And the Senate parliamentarians agree.The archetypal filibuster was Strom Thurmond's 24-hour talk-a-thon in opposition to civil rights. Thurmond read the phone book, the recipes, all of it. But Thurmond's filibuster was always doomed: Democrats and Northern Republicans had the votes to shut him down (which they did). His gabfest was a Senatorial courtesy: They allowed their esteemed colleague to demonstrate the depth of his opposition to the measure. When he exhausted himself, they invoked cloture and voted on the bill.But delay in the Senate, Grim finds, doesn't require a long speech. It requires only one Republican to be president, and he or she doesn't need to say anything in front of the cameras at all. Every time the Democrats tried to vote, the Republican would simply have to say "I suggest the absence of a quorum." At that point, says Grim, "the presiding officer would then be required to call the roll. When that finished, the Senator could again notice the absence of a quorum and start the process all over. At no point would the obstructing Republican be required to defend his position, read from the phone book or any of the other things people associate with the Hollywood version of a filibuster.""To get an idea of what the scene would look like on the Senate floor if Democrats tried to force Republicans to talk out a filibuster, turn on C-SPAN on any given Saturday. Hear the classical music? See the blue carpet behind the 'Quorum Call' logo? That would be the resulting scene if Democrats forced a filibuster and the GOP chose not to play along."What you could do, then, is create the equivalent of a Senate shutdown. That would certainly dramatize the obstruction. But it wouldn't be senators filibustering. It would be senators on the cable news shows arguing their case. And few in Washington want to risk a government shutdown, as they remember what happened to Gingrich when he tried it. WHY HARRY REID DOESN'T FORCE REPUBLICANS TO FILIBUSTER.
One of the most common assignment desks is recent weeks has been on the filibuster: Why, you ask, doesn't Reid just make the GOP talk all night? Ryan Grim looked into this and obtained a memo Reid's office wrote on the Senate rules. The problem, Reid's people concluded, is that the Republicans wouldn't have to talk. And the Senate parliamentarians agree.The archetypal filibuster was Strom Thurmond's 24-hour talk-a-thon in opposition to civil rights. Thurmond read the phone book, the recipes, all of it. But Thurmond's filibuster was always doomed: Democrats and Northern Republicans had the votes to shut him down (which they did). His gabfest was a Senatorial courtesy: They allowed their esteemed colleague to demonstrate the depth of his opposition to the measure. When he exhausted himself, they invoked cloture and voted on the bill.But delay in the Senate, Grim finds, doesn't require a long speech. It requires only one Republican to be president, and he or she doesn't need to say anything in front of the cameras at all. Every time the Democrats tried to vote, the Republican would simply have to say "I suggest the absence of a quorum." At that point, says Grim, "the presiding officer would then be required to call the roll. When that finished, the Senator could again notice the absence of a quorum and start the process all over. At no point would the obstructing Republican be required to defend his position, read from the phone book or any of the other things people associate with the Hollywood version of a filibuster.""To get an idea of what the scene would look like on the Senate floor if Democrats tried to force Republicans to talk out a filibuster, turn on C-SPAN on any given Saturday. Hear the classical music? See the blue carpet behind the 'Quorum Call' logo? That would be the resulting scene if Democrats forced a filibuster and the GOP chose not to play along."What you could do, then, is create the equivalent of a Senate shutdown. That would certainly dramatize the obstruction. But it wouldn't be senators filibustering. It would be senators on the cable news shows arguing their case. And few in Washington want to risk a government shutdown, as they remember what happened to Gingrich when he tried it. 
