Rodriguez Fabregat Quotes

The senator sees examples of the filibuster in ancient Rome.

See {584897} for a quotation from the speech. Spinning and giving advance copies of speeches to the press is not the invention of the 20th century media-savvy political handlers. It was a standard practice even in the 19th century.

Some scholars credit this quote earlier to Comedian Will Rogers.

When informed that his speaking time had expired, Allen said:

1st Earl of Beaconsfield

The Senate had always been more deliberative than the House, but at the time Alexander made this statement, his party—the minority in the Senate—had filibustered most of all the legislation, There were more filibusters than had occurred in the entire pure history of America.

Despite having passed the House and a majority of the Senate favoring McCain’s bill, a filibuster was led by a few holdouts from his own party. Patiently, McCain assembled sufficient Senate support to break the filibuster.

They were discussing the Civil Right Bill of 1964 which they all wanted to pass. See {605438} . However, they faced a filibuster from the Southern Senators who had always before used this tactic and blocked Civil Rights legislation. However, the President here committed himself to the one way to take most of the power out of the filibuster. Accept a shutdown of the Senate, give up the rest of the President’s legislative program but the filibuster blocks all legislation that the Southerners wanted like cotton and tobacco subsidies.

The Cloture motion was the motion to terminate the Southern Filibuster against the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Johnson needed substantial Republican support as the Solid Democratic South was all opposed to any kind of civil rights legislation. What is interesting is that Johnson, known as the champion arm twister, knew when to twist and when not to. Mundt, although a serious conservative and generally opposed to the Federal government controlling local human interaction, had also been a school superintendent and was a decent and fair-minded man who was personally offended by the over a century of unfair discrimination and overt racism. Johnson would either have Mundt’s vote from conviction or he would not get it, and pressure was not likely to work with him.

In the early days of the Senate Filibuster, a senator could hold the floor (and halt all actions) as long as he could continue to speak or 3/5 of the Senate voted to end the filibuster. The filibuster imposed a physical burden on the Senator who chose to use it. Likewise, the other Senators had to be present in sufficient numbers to have a quorum, else the Filibusterer would be able to rest at he did not have to continue to speak if there was not a quorum. The Senate rules were changed to allow a Senator to “announce” a filibuster of a bill, and all action on that bill would stop but there was no burden on the filibustering senator or other senators who had to form the quorum. But in the 112th Congress, the Republicans resorted to more filibusters than there had been in the entire previous history of the Senate and Nelson wanted to return to the old requirement of holding the floor physically.

Ryan told the national audience that President Obama had come to a factory in his district that as rumored to be closed. Obama had told the workers that the Federal government could assist and keep the factory open for many years. Then as Ryan explained, the factory closed the following year. He gave this as an example of Obama not keeping his word. However what Ryan did not say was that Obama had made the speech at the factory when he was a candidate for the Presidency, and then the factory was closed while George W. Bush was President and by the time he took office, the closure was done and the factory machines gone. And when Obama took office, our national economy was within days of complete bank and finance collapse. Obama saved most of the banks and then the American automobile industry. To suggest that Obama could have or should have done something for the factory that closed was shockingly misleading. It would have been a minor issue if some party hack had lied and made the same accusation. But this was the Vice Presidential Candidate whose acceptance speech was assumedly vetted by the Presidential Candidate’s staff. That is why the quotation was so memorable.