Burnt Orange Report

You appreciate, I hope, that what the Senate is apologizing for is the blockage of any and all civil-rights legislation (of which anti-lynching legislation was the least ambitious starting point) through the repeated use, or threatened use, of the Senate filibuster by southern Democrats? And that historically, blocking civil rights legislation — not blocking judicial nominees — has been the most frequent and by far the most significant use of the filibuster?

If one's in favor of symbolic gestures, shouldn't the current resolution also condemn the filibuster, through which for more than eight decades — from the post-Civil War period through the Civil Rights Act of 1957 — a minority of bigots were able to frustrate the pro-civil rights legislative desires of a several presidents (of both parties), substantial bipartisan majorities of the House and Senate, and a majority of Americans?

Blaming the filibuster for blocking civil rights legislation is like blaming the axe for Lizzie Borden's handiwork.

Let's also recall that Southern Democrats of that era included such famous politicos as Strom Thurmond and Jesse Helms. Their tradition now resides in the GOP of Trent Lott.

Why is the Senate concerning itself with such useless legislation? Seems to me that its time would be better spent on issues like Social Security, national defense, and health care.

Drew, I think both parties of the Senate want to spotlight some bread and butter in between bitter partisan battles that dropkick approval ratings.

Also, it's no wonder Cornyn has the lowest approval rating in all the Senate.

Axes have legitimate uses, to which they're mostly put. Do you offer this same justification, Mr. Boyko, for assault rifles used to shoot up post offices?

Filibusters have mostly been used by bigots to block civil rights legislation. Filibusters have been not just a tool, but the main tool used by bigots. But for the filibuster, anti-lynching legislation would have passed decades earlier. Most of the biggest civil rights fights prior to 1957 played out not directly over proposed legislation, but over (uniformly unsuccessful) attempts by pro-civil rights forces to limit filibusters through proposed changes to Rule XXII on cloture. Pro-civil rights leaders like Hubert Humphrey made that their focus, rather than legislation itself, because they recognized that filibusters were precisely what prevented passage of the legislation.

The bigots who used or threatened to use the filibuster were not numerous enough on their own to ensure that cloture votes would fail. They had to have allies from outside the South. So they always insisted that they weren't in favor of lynching, but were acting out of devotion to the principles of "full debate" and to the protection of "minority rights." ("Minority" in this instance meaning states controlled by white Southern bigots.) This charade gave political cover to non-Southern "moderates" from both parties who declined to vote for cloture or for changes in Rule XXII, knowing that by doing so they were ensuring the perpetuation of institutionalized racism. Those "moderates" never voted against the civil rights legislation directly. Often, though, their "payoff" for voting against changes to Rule XXII or specific cloture motions were choice committee assignments and log-rolled votes for local pork barrel projects -- bribes from the bigoted white southern Democrats who disproportionately controlled the Senate's major committees. If they or their Senate successors owe an apology now, it's for their support of the right to filibuster.

Thus, if one accepts the premise of symbolic votes at all, then I can see good arguments for why the Senate, as a whole, should apologize. But why the Senate, and not the House? Because the House didn't have filibusters; that's the reason why the House didn't block civil rights legislation, just like it's the reason why the Senate did.

Facile analogies aside, those are the historic facts. Do they justify a symobolic condemnation of the Senate filibuster — along with condemnation of the bigots who used it and the enablers who permitted it?

Blaming filibusters-- filibusters alone, that is-- for the failure of the Senate to pass civil rights legislation is silly. Comparing the Dixiecrat filibusters of decades ago to the ones of today while ignoring the political issues and the dynamics of the Senate makeup, well that's just reckless. Facile analogies, indeed.

Recall that a filibuster requires a very public vote by each Senator on a very high profile measure. Recall also that it can be ended by a supermajority. Now compare that to other obstructionist techniques whereby a single Senator can silently put a hold on a nomination or prevent legislation from ever reaching committee. It takes a lot more guts to support a filibuster than to use cowardly, underhanded rules. (Cough, Jesse Helms, cough.) Just ask any GOP Senator who dares to vote on principle instead of party line.

The Senate SHOULD apologize for blocking civil rights, whether or not filibusters were used. Let's that this august body doesn't need to apologize again 50 years from now for NOT using the Senate rules and traditions to protect our precious American freedoms and values.

Jose, I don't blame "filibusters alone." Re-read my previous post, especially its concluding paragraph. I actually blame more than just the bigots who participated in the filibusters and threats of them; I also blame the "enablers" whom the filibusterers "bought off," which included non-southern Senators of both parties.

But I'm interested to find that the Los Angeles Times — that bastion of conservatism and Republicanism — published a pretty good op-ed today making some of the same points that I did:

Not acknowledging that the filibuster was at issue in the lynching context, not even to address the filibuster's tarnished history, amounts to intellectual cowardice.

I don't agree with the writer that it's "obscene" for the Senate to have named its office building after the late Richard Russell (D-GA), even though for many years, he was the de facto leader of southern Senate Democrats. Russell was LBJ's mentor in the Senate, and as Robert Caro's fabulous LBJ biography Master of the Senate makes clear, Russell was a great senator and a great American in many respects other than his civil rights record, and even there was far from the most vile in his attitudes. But yes, his participation in blocking civil rights legislation tarnishes his record — as indeed LBJ's participation as a Congressman and a Senator pre-1957 tarnishes his (despite his later becoming the preeminently successful civil rights crusader of the Twentieth Century). There are both things to applaud and things to lament (and condemn, and apologize for) in America's civil rights history, and frequently one finds all those things in the record of single individuals. (Caro tells how Hubert Humphrey, for example, was piloried for "selling out" on civil rights when he supported LBJ's cynical but effective plan to gut most of the Civil Rights Act of 1957 — because Humphrey, like LBJ, realized that getting any civil rights bill past the filibustering southern Democrats was "better than nothing.")

But you simply can't reflect meaningfully about America's civil rights record without recognizing the absolutely central role that the filibuster has played in it — always and inevitably as the key anti-civil rights mechanism. One can make an intellectually honest defense of it only if one is willing to admit and embrace the facts that it is profoundly anti-(small-d)-democratic, and that it historically has been used for vile purposes (regardless of how it's purportedly being used now). The southern Democrats who successfully filibustered civil rights legislation for decades — 82 years! — also insisted that they were "protecting precious American freedoms and values." But objectively, they were frustrating representative majority democracy then, and the verdict of history is that they were deluding themselves and were simply wrong in how they characterized the "freedoms and values" they were protecting against "erosion" by the legislative majority.

Judicial filibusters now are absolutely as anti-democratic as were anti-civil rights filibusters then — that's not subject to honest dispute. Perhaps the verdict of history will be kinder in assessing the "freedoms and values" that judicial filibusters are being used to "protect" today. But again, be honest, and admit that (a) the tool being used is one that has primarily been used in the past for "causes" that history has ultimately condemned, and (b) the current legislative majority already disagrees with your evaluation of your "cause," just as then then-majorities who were frustrated with civil rights filibusters disapproved of the anti-civil rights "cause."

Funny word, "anti-democratic". But isn't that what the Senate was intended to be, in a GOOD way? By design and by tradition, it is a deliberative body, meant to curb the whims and excesses of an exuberant public. Yes, by golly, on occasion they do slow things down a bit. Bravo!

One thing that really chaps me in the current furor over judicial filibusters is the whole constitutional issue. There's a lot more rationale for the constitutionality of the Senate's actions than there is for the behavior of President Bush. Constitution says here that each house can make its own rules, and so the Senate allows extended debate. The Constitution does NOT say that the Senate must vote on every nominee, or even that a simple majority approval is sufficient for confirmation. But the Constitution does require the President to obtain "the advice and consent of the Senate", and the honest truth is that he treats them more as lapdogs than as constitutional partners.

Your original post asked whether we should condemn the filibuster. The answer is "no". There is nothing inherently evil about it, whereas the mere threat of filibuster has the potential for good. You seem awfully intent on making the point that a (slim) majority didn't like them (a) then and (b) now. Agreed. Look, there's no argument that the filibuster has been used in the past for ill purposes. However, to extrapolate from past sins in lieu of analyzing the present usage is unnecessary and unwise. That, too, is not subject to honest debate.