Volconvo Debate Forums - View Single Post - The Filibuster: Protecting the minority or impeding democracy?

dotcoma · May 24, 2005, 04:07 pm

With the recent compromise between Republicans and Democrats to keep the tradition of the filibuster around what do you think of the use of such a senate tactic?

For our non-American friends, or those in general who do not know what a filibuster is: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fillibuster

I think that it is a perfectly legitimate way a minority party in government can prevent extremely controversial decisions from being made by the majority-simply because they control the Senate. Besides, to counter this, 3/5'ths majority vote can prevent a filibuster, so if it is truly a reasonable request then perhaps it can avoid prevention.

In terms of current events, I think the filibuster has not been overused. Hundreds of judicial nominees have been approved, while only ten have been stopped via the filibuster.

Opinions?

May 24, 2005, 04:07 pm	#1 (permalink) (top)
dotcoma Volcanic Erupter Posts: 3,154	The Filibuster: Protecting the minority or impeding democracy? With the recent compromise between Republicans and Democrats to keep the tradition of the filibuster around what do you think of the use of such a senate tactic? For our non-American friends, or those in general who do not know what a filibuster is: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fillibuster I think that it is a perfectly legitimate way a minority party in government can prevent extremely controversial decisions from being made by the majority-simply because they control the Senate. Besides, to counter this, 3/5'ths majority vote can prevent a filibuster, so if it is truly a reasonable request then perhaps it can avoid prevention. In terms of current events, I think the filibuster has not been overused. Hundreds of judicial nominees have been approved, while only ten have been stopped via the filibuster. Opinions? Last edited by dotcoma; May 24, 2005 at 04:50 pm.