Filibuster

Rand Paul, a Republican, is a U.S. senator from Kentucky. If I had planned to speak for 13 hours when I took the Senate floor Wednesday, I would've worn more comfortable shoes. I started my filibuster with the words, "I rise today to begin to filibuster John Brennan's nomination for the CIA. I will speak until I can no longer speak" — and I meant it. I wanted to sound an alarm bell from coast to coast. I wanted everybody to know that our Constitution is precious and that no American should be killed by a drone ...

Norman J. Ornstein is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. Thomas E. Mann is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. They are co-authors of " It's Even Worse Than It Looks: How the American Constitutional System Collided With the New Politics of Extremism . " Larry Summers is a brilliant, award-winning economist. Monday, in his monthly op-ed column for The Post, he opined about politics and history [" Sometimes, gridlock is good for America ," April 15]

In their quest to thwart President Obama, Republicans do not fear the hobgoblin of consistency. For much of this decade, Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama, now the top Republican on the Judiciary Committee, led the fight against Democratic filibusters of George W. Bush's judicial nominees. He decried Democrats' "unprecedented, obstructive tactics. " To have Bush nominees "opposed on a partisan filibuster, it is really wrong," he added. He demanded they get "an up-and-down vote. " He praised Republican leaders because they "opposed judicial filibusters" and have...

E.J. Dionne Jr.'s April 8 op-ed column, " Our deadlocked democracy ," was a spot-on diagnosis of why Washington and the nation are stuck in political gridlock, held hostage by those whose distorted views are clearly extreme and in the minority. The culprit is the use of systems in ways never intended, such as the filibuster, gerrymandering and the power of the GOP primary. We should be outraged that they allow the majority will of this country to be thwarted. How will this change?

With Tuesday's loss, Democrats have only 57 senators, and the media is declaring this a major public rejection of the Democratic Party. It is useful to note, however, that with Tuesday's win, the Republicans have only 41 senators. In fact, Republicans have not had as many as 57 sitting senators since 1921. No Republican president has had a "filibuster-proof" majority in the U.S. Senate since the shortened term of Warren G. Harding. Again this year, Democrats have not distinguished themselves.

While "Google" makes sense for word of the decade from a social perspective ["Google," Style, Jan. 9], "filibuster" has been more significant in terms of its impact on American lives. Legislative progress in this country has been stifled for the past 10 years by the threat of the filibuster, which requires that a supermajority of U.S. senators back a bill before it can pass. And as we have seen in the health-care debate, it is difficult to get 60 senators to agree on anything.

In his Sept. 25 Fine Print column, " A day in the dysfunctional life of the Senate ," Walter Pincus stated that no one seems to have a plan to get Congress working again.  Under the current rules, the minority party has no incentive to compromise, only to obstruct. That is why in 1995, as a member of the then-minority party, I introduced a proposal to reform the filibuster. I believed, as I do now, that filibuster-induced paralysis would...

Perhaps it was inevitable that a parliamentary rule named after pirates would metastasize into an untamed menace. Throughout its unlikely history, the filibuster has been – depending on the moment – lauded and scorned and even immortalized by Hollywood . A Senate relic, dry as parchment, has gained the sort of colorful reputation normally reserved for troubled starlets (or troubled generals). Now, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid proposes, as others have in the past, to finally rein in the beast.

Here's my plea to Jim Lehrer: At the first presidential debate in Denver next Wednesday, ask the candidates if they are in favor of restoring majority rule in this country. In other words, ask them if they would urge the Senate to scrap the filibuster — and if not, how do they expect to get anything done? It's an ideal debate question for five reasons. First, it's not the kind of thing on which the candidates will have prepared snoozy, market-tested talking points. So it might give voters the chance to see Mitt...

CORRECTION: A graphic with the article about moves to change Senate rules on filibusters misstated the duration of a filibuster by William Proxmire (D- Wis.) on a 1981 bill to raise the debt ceiling. It lasted 16 hours, 12 minutes, not 6 hours, 12 minutes. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) chuckled as he recently reflected on his effort, five years ago, to change nearly century-old filibuster rules. "God, that was a dumb idea," McConnell said. Back in 2005, McConnell had "majority" in his...

WILL SENATE Democrats give into temptation and smash the filibuster, after all? The Senate just got through reforming some of its arcane — but intensely disputed — rules that allow a minority to hold up the country's business, and TPM's Brian Beutler reports that already Democrats are thinking of changing them again . But Republicans can easily end talk of further limiting minority rights in the chamber. They just need to start using those rights more responsibly. In January, Senate leaders struck a bipartisan agreement to...

In choice of both topic and foil, Rand Paul's now legendary Senate filibuster was a stroke of political genius. The topic was, ostensibly, very narrow : Does the president have the constitutional authority to put a drone-launched Hellfire missile through your kitchen — you, a good citizen of Topeka to whom POTUS might have taken a dislike — while you're cooking up a pot roast? The constituency of those who could not give this question a straight answer is exceedingly small.

Regarding Sen. Rand Paul's March 10 Outlook commentary " My 13 hours were just the beginning ": Mr. Paul (R-Ky.) is right that there needs to be meaningful oversight of drone strikes against U.S. citizens, both within the United States and abroad. But I hope Mr. Paul would agree that this issue transcends the use of drones. An advanced fighter jet, appropriately armed, can do almost anything a drone can do; will Mr. Paul also filibuster funding for the F-35 until he receives appropriate guarantees...

I just spent a wonderful and encouraging weekend with a church leadership team from Reisterstown, Md. I came away filled with hope for this congregation and with admiration for their clergy and lay leaders. I wish our weak and tiresome political leaders in Washington and state capitals could visit this church in northern Baltimore County and see how mature adults of diverse backgrounds and viewpoints manage to put the congregation first. They listened, spoke without barbed words and without aggression garbed in niceness.

Hats off to Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) for appropriately applying his filibuster to help wake up America [" Senator holds long filibuster to oppose Obama's drone policy ," news, March 7]. Many post-Sept. 11, 2001, behaviors of our government have indelibly stained our Constitution. Torture, the abuse of habeas corpus and the invasion of communications privacy are but a few of the egregious actions resulting from our post-9/11 traumatic syndrome. The president and the nation must terminate any...

Rand Paul is the hottest commodity in Republican Party politics right now. But how high can he rise? We put that question to a wide cross section of veteran Republican hands in the wake of the Kentucky Republican's filibuster of John Brennan's confirmation as CIA director last week and got a nearly unanimous response: Paul is already a national leader within the party and will be a major factor if (but really when) he runs for president in 2016. " The filibuster is the single largest leap I can recall from one...

WILL SENATE Democrats give into temptation and smash the filibuster, after all? The Senate just got through reforming some of its arcane — but intensely disputed — rules that allow a minority to hold up the country's business, and TPM's Brian Beutler reports that already Democrats are thinking of changing them again . But Republicans can easily end talk of further limiting minority rights in the chamber. They just need to start using those rights more responsibly. In January, Senate leaders struck a bipartisan agreement to...

Senate Republicans delivered a sharp rebuke to President Obama on Thursday when they began a filibuster of Chuck Hagel 's nomination as secretary of defense. The confirmation process stalled Thursday when GOP senators deprived Hagel of the 60 votes needed to move it to its final stages. Republicans said they were seeking a delay so they could look more closely at the nominee. Both sides still think the former GOP senator from Nebraska will be confirmed, but the filibuster brought stark condemnations...

Rand Paul, a Republican, is a U.S. senator from Kentucky. If I had planned to speak for 13 hours when I took the Senate floor Wednesday, I would've worn more comfortable shoes. I started my filibuster with the words, "I rise today to begin to filibuster John Brennan's nomination for the CIA. I will speak until I can no longer speak" — and I meant it. I wanted to sound an alarm bell from coast to coast. I wanted everybody to know that our Constitution is precious and that no American should be killed by a drone ...

What was happening to Rand Paul, 12 hours into this windmill-tilting crusade against drones (but not against droning), as the sun set and the moon rose and he talked and he talked and he — oh, how he talked . What was happening to his vocal cords? To the soles of his feet? What was happening — don't pretend you don't want to know — to his bladder ? "I don't know if it's necessarily the best thing to do. " Bill Frohna considers Paul's bladder. Frohna is the chairman...