Hendrik Hertzberg Quotes

The minority in the Senate has the power to prevent the majority from acting.

The Senate has unlimited debate; in the House, debate is ruthlessly circumscribed. There is frequent discussion as to which technique most effectively frustrates democratic process.

This has not been a legislative process worthy of the Senate. Members of the Judiciary Committee, as I just said, were implored to save their amendments for the floor. Then, when we got here, we were told no amendments could be accepted.

Filibusters should require 35 senators to... make a commitment to continually debate an issue in reality, not just in theory. The number of votes needed to overcome a filibuster should be reduced to 55 from 60.

We've seen filibusters of bills and nominations that ultimately passed with 90 or more votes. Why filibuster something that has that kind of support? Just to slow down the process and keep the Senate from working.

Filibuster is nothing less than a formula for tyranny by the minority

The history of Congress shows that once parliamentary tools become big enough obstacles for the majority party, they are abolished or reformed.

In theory, the filibuster helps whichever party is in the minority in the Senate. In practice, it is the Republicans who have disproportionately used it to engage in cynical and anti-democratic obstructionism whenever they find themselves in the minority.

There is a limitation on debate, which is unlike other bills, for 20 hours, but there is no limitation on amendments. In other words, Republicans if they wanted to, and I suspect they do, could offer literally thousands of amendments and keep Senate in session for weeks and months.

I have this fear that one day there's going to be a fire in the Senate and there are only going to be 57 senators there and they’ll all die because they won't have 60 votes to allow themselves to leave the building.

It used to be in the Senate that if you were filibustering, you stood up. There was a physical dimension to it, that you - when you became exhausted you would have to leave the floor. That was the idea of the filibuster.

There are two ways of looking at the talking filibuster. My way is as a form of unanimous consent.

You know, the purpose of reconciliation is to avoid the filibuster. The filibuster is an effort to talk something to death.

The debates of that great assembly are frequently vague and perplexed, seeming to be dragged rather than to march, to the intended goal. Something of this sort must, I think, always happen in public democratic assemblies.

My view of the filibuster is either you've got to lower vote edge or make people really filibuster if they feel that seriously about a piece of legislation.

The Senate as an institution is broken. We're not doing the work of the American people and the rules are being abused. The only way to get us back to the traditions where the Senate is doing the work of the American people is to change the rules.

Filibusters have proliferated because under current rules just one or two determined senators can stop the Senate from functioning. Today, the mere threat of a filibuster is enough to stop a vote; senators are rarely asked to pull all-nighters like Jimmy Stewart in 'Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.'

We demand that the House of Representatives shall again become a deliberative body, controlled by the majority of the people's Representatives and not be the Speaker ...

The people never have and never will be able to understand how the will of a majority of the House of Representatives can be set aside by the judgment of a few men on a powerful committee.

Let the filibuster be no more. Let the people decide.

If somebody feels strongly enough to be willing to stop the Senate, he should at least be required to be on the floor and explain why.

The filibuster has only been around for 2564 years.

Eliminating the filibuster would eliminate the people’s voices in the Senate.

You have a hundred senators, but for anything to happen you need 60, which makes it really hard for anything to happen.

That's why I call the Senate the graveyard of democracy, because even when you have 58 senators, they can block it and block it and block it.