The Congressional Record is a unique source of public documentation. It started in 1873, documenting nearly all the major and minor policies being discussed and debated.
“Filibuster (Executive Session)” mentioning Tommy Tuberville was published in the Senate section on pages S1512-S1515 on March 15.
Of the 100 senators in 117th Congress, 24 percent were women, and 76 percent were men, according to the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress.
Senators' salaries are historically higher than the median US income.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
Filibuster
Madam President, it was August of 1957, and a Senator took the floor here in this very Chamber. He had a remarkable record. He served as a Democratic Senator, as a Dixiecrat Senator, and as a Republican Senator before he finally retired, and he served many years.
In 1957, he was on the floor of the Senate to take his last stand. It was August, and it was a confrontation he had been preparing for, for a long time. He was a veteran in World War II, one of the few in the Chamber at that time, and he was clearly a man devoted to his country and had shown real courage in serving as an officer in World War II. But his job on that day was to speak on the floor of the Senate for a long time.
He had been preparing for it. He had taken daily steam baths trying to dehydrate his body so that he could stand on the Senate floor for a long time, even absorb fluids without needing to take a break to go the restroom. He arrived for the battle armed with throat lozenges to stave off hoarseness, and he held the floor longer than any single Senator ever has, even to this day--24 hours and 18 minutes.
For what principled purpose did this Senator take such pains and preparation? For what noble reason did he grind the world's greatest deliberative body to a full-scale halt for more than 24 hours? In order to defend Jim Crow racial discrimination and deny equality to all Americans.
Despite his efforts, the Senate would go on to pass the Civil Rights Act of 1957, the first Federal civil rights law in nearly a century since the Reconstruction. That Senator, of course, was Strom Thurmond of South Carolina. This is how he described the Civil Rights Act of 1957 during his now notorious filibuster of that historic law. He said,
``I think the bill which is under consideration is unconstitutional. I think it's invalid. I think we are doing a useless thing.''
Well, the truth was just the opposite. The blatant discrimination of Jim Crow laws was an affront to our Constitution, a stain on our national character, and a threat to our standing in the world. The Civil Rights Act of 1957, which Strom Thurmond filibustered, broke the death grip of Jim Crow on American democracy and led the way, a few years later, to even more sweeping equality laws, including the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
Today, nearly 65 years after Strom Thurmond's marathon defense of Jim Crow, the filibuster is still making a mockery of American democracy. The filibuster is still being misused by some Senators to block legislation urgently needed and supported by a strong majority of the American people.
There is one major difference, however, when it comes to filibusters from the days of Strom Thurmond and his long-winded defense of segregation. Strom Thurmond had to sacrifice personally his comfort for his misguided beliefs. He had to actually speak without sitting on the floor for more than 24 hours to maintain his filibuster. In his day, if you sat down to take a rest or left the floor, the filibuster was over. Today, it is not the same. Senators can literally phone in a filibuster. All a Senator has to do is to tell the staff working in the cloakroom what their intention is as to a filibuster, and then the message is delivered to the floor, and another bill is sent to the Senate's overflowing legislative graveyard. This is what hitting legislative rock bottom looks like.
Today's filibuster has turned the world's most deliberative body into one of the world's most ineffectual bodies. We are like the giant in
``Gulliver's Travels,'' tied down by our own legislative redtape, unable to respond to crises and the clear wishes of the American people.
Defenders of the filibuster will tell you that it is essential for American democracy. The opposite is true. Today's filibuster undermines democracy.
By eroding people's faith in the ability of democracy to solve problems that matter the most, misuse of the filibuster may accidentally open the door to autocrats, would-be dictators, who falsely promise to deliver results, even if they ignore all of democracy's rules.
To my friends who count themselves as proud members and supporters of the Federalist Society--I am sure you have heard of it--go back and read the Federalist Papers. Read what the Founders thought of the filibusters. They hated the idea. Alexander Hamilton and James Madison, both, penned passionate defenses of simple majority rule. Listen to what Alexander Hamilton had to say about the supermajority rule: ``What at first sight may seem a remedy is, in reality, a poison.'' Those are Hamilton's own words. If a majority could not govern, Hamilton warned, it would lead to ``tedious delays; continual negotiation and intrigue;
[and] contemptible compromises of the public good.'' ``Tedious delays; continual negotiations and intrigue''--sound familiar?
And then there is James Madison, the father of the U.S. Constitution, in Federalist 58. He wrote that if a supermajority were required to pass all new laws ``the fundamental principle of free government would be reversed. It would be no longer the majority that would rule; the power would be transferred to the minority.''
Hamilton, Madison, and other of our Founding Fathers debated and rejected the idea of supermajority rule. They protected minority rights by creating a government with a President, two legislative Chambers, and a judiciary in which minority views were respected and making a law, even with simple majorities, was a challenge.
Rather than protecting the finely balanced system our Founders created, today's filibuster throws the system out of balance, giving one-half of one branch of government what amounts to veto over the rest of government. It promotes gridlock, not good governance.
As I said, Senators don't have to stand for even 1 minute to shut down the Senate. All they have to do is to threaten it, phone it in, catch a plane, go home from Washington, and come back Monday to see how their filibuster is doing. ``Mr. Smith Phones It In,'' that wouldn't have been much of a movie, would it?
Defenders of today's filibuster offer a second defense of the tradition. They say the filibuster promotes bipartisan cooperation and debate. Well, just look around. Can anyone really claim that we are living in the great age of Senate debate? Last year, calendar year 2020, in the entire year, 12 months, we considered 29 amendments on the floor of the Senate--29. It is quite an improvement over the previous year, a 30-percent improvement. The previous year we considered 22 amendments on the floor of the Senate. I am not counting the vote-arama spectacles. That is not much of a debate. It is not much of an amendment process. Sixty seconds a side, that is a great debate? Not by my definition.
The truth is, as filibusters and threatened filibusters have increased in recent decades, real debate and bipartisan cooperation have plummeted. Today's filibuster is often used to prevent the Senate from even starting to debate important ideas. It is not the guarantor of democracy; it has become the death grip of democracy.
Senator Thurmond's 1957 filibuster marked only the fifth time since 1917 that the Senate had voted to cut off any measure. I want you to reflect on that for a minute. We had had five filibusters in five decades when he took the floor in August of 1957. Guess what. We can have five filibusters in 5 days now; they have become so common.
So how did the filibuster become a weapon of mass obstruction? The answer is, we stumbled into it. The filibuster was a mistake to begin with, and it has gotten worse over time. As many of our colleagues know, when Congress first met in 1789, the House and the Senate rule books were nearly identical. Both rule books allowed a simple majority to cut off debate on any proposal by invoking what was known as the previous question rule. The House still has that motion.
The Senate eliminated the previous question rule by mistake in 1805. The change came at the suggestion of Vice President Aaron Burr, who was fresh off of his trial for killing Alexander Hamilton, and who was later tried for treason. Burr, presiding over the Senate one day, skimmed the rule book and suggested the previous question rule be dropped. He reasoned, we hardly ever use that rule, so why is it necessary? Thus, the filibuster was born, not as a sacred constitutional principle but an offhanded clerical suggestion.
There were few filibusters before the Civil War. After the war, filibusters remained rare, used exclusively to deny African Americans their basic constitutional rights. The first major changes started in 1917. The Senate adopted what is known as rule XXII--the cloture rule--
allowing the Senate to end debate with two-thirds majority vote.
Fast-forward to the 1970s, two more changes in the filibuster. First, Senators changed the rule to allow more than one bill or matter to be pending on the Senate floor at a time. Before this, a filibuster really literally brought the Senate to a halt. The creation of this two-track system allowed the Senate to take up other matters while the filibuster continued, at least theoretically.
In 1975, the rules were changed again, requiring just a three-fifths majority, 60 votes--not 67 but 60 votes--to end a filibuster. Suddenly, the filibuster became relatively painless, for Senators at least, and the number of filibusters exploded.
From 1917 to 1970, the Senate took 49 votes to break filibusters--49 votes in that period of 53 years. That is fewer than one a year. Since 2010, it has taken the Senate on average more than 80 votes a year to end filibusters.
Filibusters on so-called motions to proceed now regularly prevent us from even discussing proposals supported by the strong majority of American people. The modern filibuster had broken the normal legislative process. It was never an essential or even intentional part of democracy, and now it rules the Senate.
Over my last 20 years, I have faced a 60-vote requirement to move a measure which is very important to me and to hundreds of thousands of people in our country. It is known as the Dream Act, the bipartisan Dream Act. It was introduced so we could give to young people who were brought to this country as infants, toddlers, and little kids by their families a chance to earn their way to a path of legalization and citizenship.
Five times since it was first introduced, the Dream Act has been stopped by a filibuster--twice in 2007, once in 2010, twice in 2018. In each instance, the Dream Act received a bipartisan majority vote but was blocked by a minority of Senators. Their opposition prevented the Senate from even debating the measure.
It was repeated rejections to the Dream Act by a minority of Senators that finally moved President Obama to establish the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, DACA.
To our Republican colleagues, let me say this: If you don't want to see this President or any President impose solutions based on Executive orders, shouldn't we be willing to debate the issues at hand and consider actually legislating?
I have long been open to changing the Senate rules to restore the standing filibuster. If a Senator insists on blocking the will of the Senate, he should at least pay the minimal price of being present, no more phoning it in. If your principles are that important, stand up for them, speak your mind, hold the floor, and show your resolve.
Others have proposed different reforms, including reducing the number of votes needed to invoke cloture, creating a tiered system of voting in which a filibuster could be broken with successively smaller majorities and, ultimately, a simple majority. Some have suggested that we forbid filibusters of bills that pass out of the committee with bipartisan support. I support discussing any proposal that ends the misuse of a filibuster as a weapon of mass obstruction.
If the Senate retains the filibuster, we must change the rules so that any Senator who wants to bring the government to a standstill endures at least some discomfort in the process. We need new rules that actually promote debate. They are long overdue.
I will close with one thought. My first job in the Senate was as a college intern for Illinois Senator Paul Douglas. Paul Douglas was an extraordinary man: Ph.D. in economics, war hero, champion of honest government, and a passionate supporter of civil rights.
In 1957, he was actually on the floor when Strom Thurmond was giving his historic filibuster. In a bit of ingenuity, Paul Douglas asked that a pitcher of orange juice be placed on the desk next to Strom Thurmond's desk. He hoped that thirst and the call of nature might force an end to the shameful filibuster. Well, it didn't work. Likewise, it will take more than orange juice these days to bring an end to the filibuster as a weapon of mass obstruction.
It is time to change the Senate rules. Stop holding the Senate hostage. We cannot allow misuse of arcane rules to block the will of the American people. I urge my colleagues to defend democracy by making the changes needed.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The junior Senator from Alabama
For the People Act of 2021
Mr. TUBERVILLE. Madam President, I rise today to discuss a piece of legislation we may soon consider in this body called H.R. 1.
H.R. 1 does not solve the problems currently facing our election system; it makes the problems worse. Democrats have labeled the bill the ``For the People Act,'' but it really should be called ``For the Democrats Act.''
This partisan bill represents the largest Federal power grab in decades, and that is saying a lot after Democrats rammed through a partisan $1.9 trillion stimulus bill just 2 weeks ago. The American people elected 50 Republican Senators, but the Democrats are happy to cut out half the Chamber and the millions of Americans we represent to get what they want.
H.R. 1 would completely rewrite our election laws, hijacking power from the States and giving it to the Federal Government to dictate how our elections are run. This type of top-down approach is the opposite of our founding principles of self-government.
Article I, section 4 of the Constitution grants States the authority to manage their Federal election processes; H.R. 1 would take that away. The changes to our free and Federal elections that H.R. 1 proposes should concern every single American. This bill forces a one-
size-fits-all election system on our country by federally mandating how States run their elections. This phrase ``for the people'' means allowing citizens to choose their own leaders and voting processes, not Washington dictating new rules of the game.
Let's look at a few examples. H.R. 1 would prohibit States from requiring voters to show identification, photo ID, or otherwise. Currently, 36 States have requirements where voters need to show ID to vote. Nearly 75 percent of States agree that that is a good idea to confirm you are who you say you are when you go to exercise one of the most important civic duties.
But the point is, States get to decide. They get to decide the laws on their books when it comes to managing their Federal election processes. H.R. 1 would nix the law in those 36 States.
H.R. 1 would also make same-day voter registration mandatory in all 50 States. There are obvious concerns with same-day registration and its potential to be abused. This concept isn't new.
Many States have already had the opportunity to consider it and adopt it or not if they choose. But if H.R. 1 is enacted, it would overrule the laws and choices of 29 States that have already decided they don't want such a risky provision in their voting process.
Additionally, the Democrats are using this bill to make all the worst practices of pandemic-era elections mandatory in all 50 States: universal mail-in ballots, ballot harvesting, and the drop boxes, just to name a few.
There may not be much we agree upon up here on Capitol Hill sometimes, but I think we all agree that the 2020 Federal elections voting process was a complete disaster in some States.
Many of the States that had the hardest time running their elections were the ones that adopted the same provisions in this bill. Normally, you seek to use best practices, but this bill adopts the worst practices and forces every State to use them. That is the opposite of how our ``labs of democracy,'' our 50 States, should work.
Every State is different, with different populations, histories, challenges, opportunities. What works for Alabama may not work for California or Oklahoma and vice versa.
State governments know the needs of their people and communities better than bureaucrats here in Washington, DC. They have different laws, and they have different rules and regulations, including when it comes to voting.
The same goes for the counties within each State. Jefferson County, the most populous county in Alabama, is different from Greene County, the least populous.
While the State sets broad parameters, county governments are given some flexibility to run elections in the way that is accountable and responsive to their people. H.R. 1 fails to recognize the difference in our States and counties.
This bill is not for the people. It is not of the people or by the people. Americans want faith and trust in their elections. They want to feel confident that the process works. H.R. 1 injects distrust into the process, and that is not what Americans want or need.
In H.R. 1, we have a bill that will make States' voting procedures more susceptible to fraud. There is more we could go into, but I would say these provisions should be more than enough to sink this piece of legislation.
It shouldn't be controversial to say that we should have robust protections against voter fraud. Some States certainly do a better job protecting against fraud than others, but, ultimately, that is up to the State to decide, not the Federal Government.
The Democrats' repeated response is that election fraud doesn't exist, but they only say this when it benefits them. They want to rewrite the rules of the game for all 50 States from Capitol Hill.
I have been consistent on the question of voter fraud. I believe we need more integrity in our elections, not less. We as a country need to restore confidence in our electoral process. I have joined my colleagues in calling for a bipartisan commission to look into how we can make our elections more secure. But to completely throw away or outlaw many of the safeguards we have would destroy that remaining confidence for generations to come. But maybe that is the point of H.R. 1, which is even more reason to oppose this bad bill.
House Democrats are calling this bill the most important voting legislation since the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The Voting Rights Act was important, historic, and necessary. H.R. 1 is not. The Voting Rights Act guaranteed millions of Americans the rights granted by our Constitution that were wrongfully denied to them for too long. It was also passed with strong bipartisan majorities in both Chambers of Congress, despite Democrats' control of the Presidency, the House, and the Senate. That bipartisan support showed the American people that folks from different backgrounds can come together to work out important issues.
Any reform to the rules of the game must be bipartisan, just like they were with the Voting Rights Act. For one party to completely rewrite the rules will destroy the people's trust in our voting process and their trust in democracy.
Madam President, I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The senior Senator from Iowa.
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