[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 48 (Monday, March 15, 2021)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1512-S1515]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                               Filibuster

  Madam President, it was August of 1957, and a Senator took the floor 
here in this very Chamber. He had a remarkable record. He served as a 
Democratic Senator, as a Dixiecrat Senator, and as a Republican Senator 
before he finally retired, and he served many years.
  In 1957, he was on the floor of the Senate to take his last stand. It 
was August, and it was a confrontation he had been preparing for, for a 
long time. He was a veteran in World War II, one of the few in the 
Chamber at that time, and he was clearly a man devoted to his country 
and had shown real courage in serving as an officer in World War II. 
But his job on that day was to speak on the floor of the Senate for a 
long time.
  He had been preparing for it. He had taken daily steam baths trying 
to dehydrate his body so that he could stand on the Senate floor for a 
long time, even absorb fluids without needing to take a break to go the 
restroom. He arrived for the battle armed with throat lozenges to stave 
off hoarseness, and he held the floor longer than any single Senator 
ever has, even to this day--24 hours and 18 minutes.
  For what principled purpose did this Senator take such pains and 
preparation? For what noble reason did he grind the world's greatest 
deliberative body to a full-scale halt for more than 24 hours? In order 
to defend Jim Crow racial discrimination and deny equality to all 
Americans.
  Despite his efforts, the Senate would go on to pass the Civil Rights 
Act of 1957, the first Federal civil rights law in nearly a century 
since the Reconstruction. That Senator, of course, was Strom Thurmond 
of South Carolina. This is how he described the Civil Rights Act of 
1957 during his now notorious filibuster of that historic law. He said, 
``I think the bill which is under consideration is unconstitutional. I 
think it's invalid. I think we are doing a useless thing.''
  Well, the truth was just the opposite. The blatant discrimination of 
Jim Crow laws was an affront to our Constitution, a stain on our 
national character, and a threat to our standing in the world. The 
Civil Rights Act of 1957, which Strom Thurmond filibustered, broke the 
death grip of Jim Crow on American democracy and led the way, a few 
years later, to even more sweeping equality laws, including the Civil 
Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
  Today, nearly 65 years after Strom Thurmond's marathon defense of Jim 
Crow, the filibuster is still making a mockery of American democracy. 
The filibuster is still being misused by some Senators to block 
legislation urgently needed and supported by a strong majority of the 
American people.
  There is one major difference, however, when it comes to filibusters 
from

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the days of Strom Thurmond and his long-winded defense of segregation. 
Strom Thurmond had to sacrifice personally his comfort for his 
misguided beliefs. He had to actually speak without sitting on the 
floor for more than 24 hours to maintain his filibuster. In his day, if 
you sat down to take a rest or left the floor, the filibuster was over. 
Today, it is not the same. Senators can literally phone in a 
filibuster. All a Senator has to do is to tell the staff working in the 
cloakroom what their intention is as to a filibuster, and then the 
message is delivered to the floor, and another bill is sent to the 
Senate's overflowing legislative graveyard. This is what hitting 
legislative rock bottom looks like.
  Today's filibuster has turned the world's most deliberative body into 
one of the world's most ineffectual bodies. We are like the giant in 
``Gulliver's Travels,'' tied down by our own legislative redtape, 
unable to respond to crises and the clear wishes of the American 
people.

  Defenders of the filibuster will tell you that it is essential for 
American democracy. The opposite is true. Today's filibuster undermines 
democracy.
  By eroding people's faith in the ability of democracy to solve 
problems that matter the most, misuse of the filibuster may 
accidentally open the door to autocrats, would-be dictators, who 
falsely promise to deliver results, even if they ignore all of 
democracy's rules.
  To my friends who count themselves as proud members and supporters of 
the Federalist Society--I am sure you have heard of it--go back and 
read the Federalist Papers. Read what the Founders thought of the 
filibusters. They hated the idea. Alexander Hamilton and James Madison, 
both, penned passionate defenses of simple majority rule. Listen to 
what Alexander Hamilton had to say about the supermajority rule: ``What 
at first sight may seem a remedy is, in reality, a poison.'' Those are 
Hamilton's own words. If a majority could not govern, Hamilton warned, 
it would lead to ``tedious delays; continual negotiation and intrigue; 
[and] contemptible compromises of the public good.'' ``Tedious delays; 
continual negotiations and intrigue''--sound familiar?
  And then there is James Madison, the father of the U.S. Constitution, 
in Federalist 58. He wrote that if a supermajority were required to 
pass all new laws ``the fundamental principle of free government would 
be reversed. It would be no longer the majority that would rule; the 
power would be transferred to the minority.''
  Hamilton, Madison, and other of our Founding Fathers debated and 
rejected the idea of supermajority rule. They protected minority rights 
by creating a government with a President, two legislative Chambers, 
and a judiciary in which minority views were respected and making a 
law, even with simple majorities, was a challenge.
  Rather than protecting the finely balanced system our Founders 
created, today's filibuster throws the system out of balance, giving 
one-half of one branch of government what amounts to veto over the rest 
of government. It promotes gridlock, not good governance.
  As I said, Senators don't have to stand for even 1 minute to shut 
down the Senate. All they have to do is to threaten it, phone it in, 
catch a plane, go home from Washington, and come back Monday to see how 
their filibuster is doing. ``Mr. Smith Phones It In,'' that wouldn't 
have been much of a movie, would it?
  Defenders of today's filibuster offer a second defense of the 
tradition. They say the filibuster promotes bipartisan cooperation and 
debate. Well, just look around. Can anyone really claim that we are 
living in the great age of Senate debate? Last year, calendar year 
2020, in the entire year, 12 months, we considered 29 amendments on the 
floor of the Senate--29. It is quite an improvement over the previous 
year, a 30-percent improvement. The previous year we considered 22 
amendments on the floor of the Senate. I am not counting the vote-arama 
spectacles. That is not much of a debate. It is not much of an 
amendment process. Sixty seconds a side, that is a great debate? Not by 
my definition.
  The truth is, as filibusters and threatened filibusters have 
increased in recent decades, real debate and bipartisan cooperation 
have plummeted. Today's filibuster is often used to prevent the Senate 
from even starting to debate important ideas. It is not the guarantor 
of democracy; it has become the death grip of democracy.
  Senator Thurmond's 1957 filibuster marked only the fifth time since 
1917 that the Senate had voted to cut off any measure. I want you to 
reflect on that for a minute. We had had five filibusters in five 
decades when he took the floor in August of 1957. Guess what. We can 
have five filibusters in 5 days now; they have become so common.
  So how did the filibuster become a weapon of mass obstruction? The 
answer is, we stumbled into it. The filibuster was a mistake to begin 
with, and it has gotten worse over time. As many of our colleagues 
know, when Congress first met in 1789, the House and the Senate rule 
books were nearly identical. Both rule books allowed a simple majority 
to cut off debate on any proposal by invoking what was known as the 
previous question rule. The House still has that motion.
  The Senate eliminated the previous question rule by mistake in 1805. 
The change came at the suggestion of Vice President Aaron Burr, who was 
fresh off of his trial for killing Alexander Hamilton, and who was 
later tried for treason. Burr, presiding over the Senate one day, 
skimmed the rule book and suggested the previous question rule be 
dropped. He reasoned, we hardly ever use that rule, so why is it 
necessary? Thus, the filibuster was born, not as a sacred 
constitutional principle but an offhanded clerical suggestion.
  There were few filibusters before the Civil War. After the war, 
filibusters remained rare, used exclusively to deny African Americans 
their basic constitutional rights. The first major changes started in 
1917. The Senate adopted what is known as rule XXII--the cloture rule--
allowing the Senate to end debate with two-thirds majority vote.
  Fast-forward to the 1970s, two more changes in the filibuster. First, 
Senators changed the rule to allow more than one bill or matter to be 
pending on the Senate floor at a time. Before this, a filibuster really 
literally brought the Senate to a halt. The creation of this two-track 
system allowed the Senate to take up other matters while the filibuster 
continued, at least theoretically.
  In 1975, the rules were changed again, requiring just a three-fifths 
majority, 60 votes--not 67 but 60 votes--to end a filibuster. Suddenly, 
the filibuster became relatively painless, for Senators at least, and 
the number of filibusters exploded.

  From 1917 to 1970, the Senate took 49 votes to break filibusters--49 
votes in that period of 53 years. That is fewer than one a year. Since 
2010, it has taken the Senate on average more than 80 votes a year to 
end filibusters.
  Filibusters on so-called motions to proceed now regularly prevent us 
from even discussing proposals supported by the strong majority of 
American people. The modern filibuster had broken the normal 
legislative process. It was never an essential or even intentional part 
of democracy, and now it rules the Senate.
  Over my last 20 years, I have faced a 60-vote requirement to move a 
measure which is very important to me and to hundreds of thousands of 
people in our country. It is known as the Dream Act, the bipartisan 
Dream Act. It was introduced so we could give to young people who were 
brought to this country as infants, toddlers, and little kids by their 
families a chance to earn their way to a path of legalization and 
citizenship.
  Five times since it was first introduced, the Dream Act has been 
stopped by a filibuster--twice in 2007, once in 2010, twice in 2018. In 
each instance, the Dream Act received a bipartisan majority vote but 
was blocked by a minority of Senators. Their opposition prevented the 
Senate from even debating the measure.
  It was repeated rejections to the Dream Act by a minority of Senators 
that finally moved President Obama to establish the Deferred Action for 
Childhood Arrivals, DACA.
  To our Republican colleagues, let me say this: If you don't want to 
see this President or any President impose solutions based on Executive 
orders, shouldn't we be willing to debate the issues at hand and 
consider actually legislating?
  I have long been open to changing the Senate rules to restore the 
standing filibuster. If a Senator insists on

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blocking the will of the Senate, he should at least pay the minimal 
price of being present, no more phoning it in. If your principles are 
that important, stand up for them, speak your mind, hold the floor, and 
show your resolve.
  Others have proposed different reforms, including reducing the number 
of votes needed to invoke cloture, creating a tiered system of voting 
in which a filibuster could be broken with successively smaller 
majorities and, ultimately, a simple majority. Some have suggested that 
we forbid filibusters of bills that pass out of the committee with 
bipartisan support. I support discussing any proposal that ends the 
misuse of a filibuster as a weapon of mass obstruction.
  If the Senate retains the filibuster, we must change the rules so 
that any Senator who wants to bring the government to a standstill 
endures at least some discomfort in the process. We need new rules that 
actually promote debate. They are long overdue.
  I will close with one thought. My first job in the Senate was as a 
college intern for Illinois Senator Paul Douglas. Paul Douglas was an 
extraordinary man: Ph.D. in economics, war hero, champion of honest 
government, and a passionate supporter of civil rights.
  In 1957, he was actually on the floor when Strom Thurmond was giving 
his historic filibuster. In a bit of ingenuity, Paul Douglas asked that 
a pitcher of orange juice be placed on the desk next to Strom 
Thurmond's desk. He hoped that thirst and the call of nature might 
force an end to the shameful filibuster. Well, it didn't work. 
Likewise, it will take more than orange juice these days to bring an 
end to the filibuster as a weapon of mass obstruction.
  It is time to change the Senate rules. Stop holding the Senate 
hostage. We cannot allow misuse of arcane rules to block the will of 
the American people. I urge my colleagues to defend democracy by making 
the changes needed.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The junior Senator from Alabama


                       For the People Act of 2021

  Mr. TUBERVILLE. Madam President, I rise today to discuss a piece of 
legislation we may soon consider in this body called H.R. 1.
  H.R. 1 does not solve the problems currently facing our election 
system; it makes the problems worse. Democrats have labeled the bill 
the ``For the People Act,'' but it really should be called ``For the 
Democrats Act.''
  This partisan bill represents the largest Federal power grab in 
decades, and that is saying a lot after Democrats rammed through a 
partisan $1.9 trillion stimulus bill just 2 weeks ago. The American 
people elected 50 Republican Senators, but the Democrats are happy to 
cut out half the Chamber and the millions of Americans we represent to 
get what they want.
  H.R. 1 would completely rewrite our election laws, hijacking power 
from the States and giving it to the Federal Government to dictate how 
our elections are run. This type of top-down approach is the opposite 
of our founding principles of self-government.
  Article I, section 4 of the Constitution grants States the authority 
to manage their Federal election processes; H.R. 1 would take that 
away. The changes to our free and Federal elections that H.R. 1 
proposes should concern every single American. This bill forces a one-
size-fits-all election system on our country by federally mandating how 
States run their elections. This phrase ``for the people'' means 
allowing citizens to choose their own leaders and voting processes, not 
Washington dictating new rules of the game.
  Let's look at a few examples. H.R. 1 would prohibit States from 
requiring voters to show identification, photo ID, or otherwise. 
Currently, 36 States have requirements where voters need to show ID to 
vote. Nearly 75 percent of States agree that that is a good idea to 
confirm you are who you say you are when you go to exercise one of the 
most important civic duties.
  But the point is, States get to decide. They get to decide the laws 
on their books when it comes to managing their Federal election 
processes. H.R. 1 would nix the law in those 36 States.
  H.R. 1 would also make same-day voter registration mandatory in all 
50 States. There are obvious concerns with same-day registration and 
its potential to be abused. This concept isn't new.
  Many States have already had the opportunity to consider it and adopt 
it or not if they choose. But if H.R. 1 is enacted, it would overrule 
the laws and choices of 29 States that have already decided they don't 
want such a risky provision in their voting process.
  Additionally, the Democrats are using this bill to make all the worst 
practices of pandemic-era elections mandatory in all 50 States: 
universal mail-in ballots, ballot harvesting, and the drop boxes, just 
to name a few.
  There may not be much we agree upon up here on Capitol Hill 
sometimes, but I think we all agree that the 2020 Federal elections 
voting process was a complete disaster in some States.
  Many of the States that had the hardest time running their elections 
were the ones that adopted the same provisions in this bill. Normally, 
you seek to use best practices, but this bill adopts the worst 
practices and forces every State to use them. That is the opposite of 
how our ``labs of democracy,'' our 50 States, should work.
  Every State is different, with different populations, histories, 
challenges, opportunities. What works for Alabama may not work for 
California or Oklahoma and vice versa.

  State governments know the needs of their people and communities 
better than bureaucrats here in Washington, DC. They have different 
laws, and they have different rules and regulations, including when it 
comes to voting.
  The same goes for the counties within each State. Jefferson County, 
the most populous county in Alabama, is different from Greene County, 
the least populous.
  While the State sets broad parameters, county governments are given 
some flexibility to run elections in the way that is accountable and 
responsive to their people. H.R. 1 fails to recognize the difference in 
our States and counties.
  This bill is not for the people. It is not of the people or by the 
people. Americans want faith and trust in their elections. They want to 
feel confident that the process works. H.R. 1 injects distrust into the 
process, and that is not what Americans want or need.
  In H.R. 1, we have a bill that will make States' voting procedures 
more susceptible to fraud. There is more we could go into, but I would 
say these provisions should be more than enough to sink this piece of 
legislation.
  It shouldn't be controversial to say that we should have robust 
protections against voter fraud. Some States certainly do a better job 
protecting against fraud than others, but, ultimately, that is up to 
the State to decide, not the Federal Government.
  The Democrats' repeated response is that election fraud doesn't 
exist, but they only say this when it benefits them. They want to 
rewrite the rules of the game for all 50 States from Capitol Hill.
  I have been consistent on the question of voter fraud. I believe we 
need more integrity in our elections, not less. We as a country need to 
restore confidence in our electoral process. I have joined my 
colleagues in calling for a bipartisan commission to look into how we 
can make our elections more secure. But to completely throw away or 
outlaw many of the safeguards we have would destroy that remaining 
confidence for generations to come. But maybe that is the point of H.R. 
1, which is even more reason to oppose this bad bill.
  House Democrats are calling this bill the most important voting 
legislation since the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The Voting Rights Act 
was important, historic, and necessary. H.R. 1 is not. The Voting 
Rights Act guaranteed millions of Americans the rights granted by our 
Constitution that were wrongfully denied to them for too long. It was 
also passed with strong bipartisan majorities in both Chambers of 
Congress, despite Democrats' control of the Presidency, the House, and 
the Senate. That bipartisan support showed the American people that 
folks from different backgrounds can come together to work out 
important issues.
  Any reform to the rules of the game must be bipartisan, just like 
they were with the Voting Rights Act. For one party to completely 
rewrite the rules will destroy the people's trust in our voting process 
and their trust in democracy.

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  Madam President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The senior Senator from Iowa.