Senate Filibusters and the Cloture Rule
Procedures for Preventing a Vote
The filibuster is widely viewed as one of the Senate’s most distinctive procedural features. Today, the term is most often used to refer to senators holding the floor in extended debate. More generally, however, “filibustering” includes any tactics aimed at blocking a measure by preventing it from coming to a vote. As a consequence, the Senate has no specific “rules for filibustering.” Instead, possibilities for filibustering exist because Senate rules deliberately lack provisions that would place specific limits on senators’ rights and opportunities in the legislative process. In particular, those rules establish no generally applicable limits on the length of…
