[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 151 (2005), Part 7]
[House]
[Page 9381]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                   AMERICAN PEOPLE SUPPORT FILIBUSTER

  (Mr. PALLONE asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute.)
  Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I just want to stress that the protection 
of the filibuster is something that the American people support.
  I heard one of my colleagues just a few minutes ago talk about the 
New Jersey filibuster which is down here at the Mall with a group of 
people who are trying to make the point that we must protect the 
filibuster. We should not repeal it as the Republicans want to do, 
because it does protect minority rights. It protects individual 
freedoms in terms of making sure that justices and judges that are 
appointed are those that have a consensus.
  I want to say that, in my State, it is not just the people involved 
in the New Jersey filibuster; a lot of other people have expressed 
their concern on this issue. Just a week or two ago, I was at Princeton 
University outside the Frist Student Center, and the students there at 
Princeton University were conducting a 24-hour filibuster which went on 
for almost 2 weeks, I think it may still be going on, because they felt 
so strongly about this issue. They feel strongly about it because it 
has been around for so long. It is over 200 years now that the Senate 
rules have provided for a filibuster, and that is what our Founding 
Fathers wanted, because they did not want an abuse of power. They did 
not want the majority to be the absolute rule.

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