Abolishing The Filibuster

The Filibuster: A Waste of Time The modern American government has been shaped by decades of discourse, debate, and compromise. From the founding fathers to the modern tea party movement, American politics have always involved debate between opposing sides and point of views. As a result of the age of our government and the extreme desire with which one side is willing to argue their point of view, outdated and frivolous means of debating and stalling have become prevalent within the modern American government. The most severe and prominent use of stalling within the modern American Government, is the filibuster. The filibuster is a stalling tactic used by a party or political group in order to stop a bill that they disagree with. Once, the filibuster was reserved and used in the most extreme and rarest of cases, but with the evolution of the modern government, the filibuster has become used significantly more. The use of the filibuster has become outdated and ineffective, because of the significant changes within the modern American government; therefore, it should be abolished. The filibuster is a method in which, a party or group of individuals with the same agenda waste time so that a bill that they are opposed to does not pass. The filibuster was first used in 1837, an astonishing 176 years ago. To put into perspective, in 1837, the United States Government was still on the gold standard and there were only 26 states in the union. At the time, time was extremely precious, and it was a significant ordeal for senators to travel, meet, and congregate in Washington. A filibuster would be used in the most extreme and rare of occasions. This is due to the fact that a filibuster could theoretically delay a vote on a bill for hours or even days. For example, in order to petition the Civil Rights act of 1957, the democrat Strom Thurmond held a 24 hour filibuster. Part of which, he read his grandmother’s biscuit recipe (Senate). Time and travel is much less

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