Is it time to kill the filibuster?

Nowhere in the Constitution of the United States is there a mention of a filibuster. Article I of the Constitution gives each house of Congress the right to make its own rules, and the use of the filibuster has been a tradition in the U.S. Senate for over two centuries. (The House of Representatives used it in our republic's early days, but banned it in the early 19th century.)

When President Bush was in office, Republicans complained that the Democrats were unfairly using the filibuster to keep certain right-wing judges from being brought to the floor for a confirmation vote. The Republican majority at the time threatened to do away with the filibuster, calling it first the "nuclear option" and when that phrase didn't poll well, they called it the "constitutional option."

Now, the majority party is the Democrats, and many on the left are howling about the Republicans abusing the filibuster. Other than it being a unique and quirky element of our Senate, I find the filibuster hard to defend as it has been used in recent decades. It was used rarely and required Senators to remain on the floor speaking throughout the entire filibuster. It was an exhausting, last-ditch effort that Senators would use only in very rare cases. A filibuster would end only when the Senator (or group of Senators) sat down and stopped speaking, thus yielding the floor to another Senator.

The modern filibuster does not require such sacrifice however. Under this system, as I understand it, those in the minority wanting to block legislation can simply declare a "procedural filibuster" which allows them to stop Senate business without having to actually stand and speak. They can hold onto this for as long as they want until a motion to end debate (cloture) passes with 3/5ths of the Senate (60 votes).

What was the original purpose of a filibuster? Does it still make sense to allow filibusters since they are used so often in recent decades? Our democracy wants answers!

Some thoughts:

The filibuster: let's talk about it - James Fallows

Op-Ed Columnist: A Dangerous Dysfunction: "The difficulty of trying to pass health care reform shows how dysfunctional the Senate, and the United States government as a whole, has become."

E.J. Dionne in the Washington Post has gone so far as to say that "everyone must get it through their heads that thanks to the bizarre habits of the Senate, we are no longer a normal democracy.

Colbert King, also of the Washington Post reminds us though that what people think of the filibuster often depends on who is in the majority and who is in the minority. Liberals love hate the filibuster.