Anyone following contemporary US politics would likely be familiar with the term ‘filibuster’ – the spectacle conjured up is of a politician, bunkering down, holding the Senate floor to ransom in an endless monologue. The object of such stonewalling is to perversely delay the passage of some piece or other of legislation they are opposed to. Many movie fans of the “Golden Age of Hollywood” cinema will recall the idealistic young ‘greenhorn’ senator (played by James Stewart) engaging in an agonising 24-hour, non-stop talking marathon to try to block corrupt legislation being passed…the junior senator droning on about the Constitution and the Bible before dramatically collapsing, exhausted, on a ‘bed’ of protest letters and telegrams (Mr Smith Goes to Washington, 1939).
(Illustration: Diana Morales/MPA)
The right to ‘speechify’: Extraneous and unrelated to the legislative matter at hand
The principle on which filibustering is predicated—that any senator should have the right to speak as long as necessary—has seen real-life politicians resort to reading material just as prosaic as the fictional Mr Smith’s tedious ‘talkathon’. Louisiana demagogue Huey Long punctuated recitations of Shakespeare and passages from the Constitution with readings of his favourite recipes – especially fried oysters and pot-likkers. Ted Cruz read Dr Seuss to his daughters while trying to stymie Obamacare. The negativity of filibustering is neatly summarised in Senate historian Donald Ritchie’s definition: a filibuster “is a minority of Senators who prevent the majority from casting a vote, knowing otherwise the majority would prevail” [‘Whatever Happened to the Old-Fashioned Jimmy Stewart-Style Filibuster?’, (Aaron Erlich), www.hnn.us/].
⇩ Huey Long (Source: www.npr.com)
Reining in its excesses
The impediment of senatorial filibustering—legislation delayed is legislation denied—led to attempts to curb its disruptiveness. Under the Wilson presidency, the Senate accepted a rule whereby a filibuster could be ended on the achievement of a two-thirds majority vote. In DC-speak this device is called invoking ‘cloture’. In 1975 the requirement was amended, necessitating only a three-fifths majority vote (ie, 60 votes out of the 100 senators) [‘Filibuster and Cloture’, United States Senate, www.senate.gov].
The device of the political filibuster, though quintessentially American, is equally a feature of legislatures of other Western democracies such as the UK, Australia, France and Canada※…and it’s a practice that goes way back to Ancient Rome and Cato the Younger’s all-day talk fests in the Roman Senate circa 60 BCE [‘The art of the filibuster: How do you talk for 24 hours straight?’, (12-Dec-2012, www.bbcnews.com].
⇧ The filibuster phenomena continues to provide political cartoonists in the US with endless inspiration
(Image: www.davegranlund.com)
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The other type of filibuster
The etymology of ’filibuster’ dates from the late 16th century, it is first used in the sphere of Spain’s imperial possessions in the “New World”. The Spanish term filibustero⍟ described the activities of freelance buccaneers and pirates who plundered the riches of Spanish America (typified by Sir Francis Drake and his raid on Panama in 1573). ’Filibuster’ re-emerges in 19th century United States to refer to North American adventurers and ‘chancers’ who organised schemes and private militias in an attempt to take over foreign countries and territories in Latin America [May, Robert E. “Young American Males and Filibustering in the Age of Manifest Destiny: The United States Army as a Cultural Mirror”. The Journal of American History, vol. 78, no. 3, 1991, pp.857-886. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/2078794. Accessed 10 Oct. 2020].
Pirate gold doubloons from the Americas ⇩
(Photo: NY Post)
Burr, godfather of US filibustering
The first tentative steps of US filibustering in the early period of the republic probably starts with Vice-President Aaron Burr in the first decade of the century. After Burr’s political career imploded in 1804 as a result of his killing of former Treasurer secretary Alexander Hamilton in a duel, the disgraced VP is believed to have hatched a plan to invade and seize Spanish territories in the west of the North American continent. The scheme was never implemented, however Burr was subsequently tried for treason but acquitted [‘The Burr Conspiracy’, National Counterintelligence Center, www.fas.org/]◰. Other filibusters followed Burr’s lead…early American adventurers like James Long and Augustus Magee formed expeditions to try to wrest control of Texas from the Spanish colonialists.
⇩ Aaron Burr (Image credit: Bettmann/Getty Images/HowStuffWorks)
Manifest Destiny west and south
The activity really took off after US territorial gains at Mexico’s expense stemming from the 1846-48 war and the discovery of gold in California. In the 1850s filibuster expeditions became a regular occurrence as ambitious US citizens, schemers and “soldiers of fortune”, launched raid and raid mainly on northern Mexico but also Central American lands in an attempt to appropriate territory for themselves or in the name of the US. Venezuelan-born Narcisco López was one of the first, trying unsuccessfully with the assistance of American southerners to capture Cuba from the Spanish on three separate occasions. Most of these filibusters were inspired by (or found legitimacy for their actions) in the emerging credo of Manifest Destiny, the belief that Americans possessed a kind of “quasi-divine Providence” to expand into new territories (be they held by native populations or Mexicans), annex them and thus spread American democracy to them [‘Manifest destiny’, Wikipedia, http://en.m.wikipedia.org].
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※ by no means is it confined to Western democracies
⍟ filibustero – from the Dutch vrijbuiter, meaning ‘freebooter’, ‘pirate’ or ‘robber’
◰ Burr was also largely responsible for the introduction into the Senate of the above form of filibuster, the procrastination ploy