Senate filibusters and cloture

What we are going to do in this video is discuss the United States Senate. We're gonna focus not only on areas where the Senate has special influence where the House of Representatives does not, but we'll also focus on how the Senate actually conducts business. As we'll see, the processes and the rules that the Senate uses make it more difficult for a simple majority to do what they want.

So, in terms of special influence, only the Senate, not the House of Representatives, is involved in ratifying treaties. The executive, the president, can negotiate a treaty, but it does not become effective and binding from a United States point of view until it is ratified by the United States Senate. It has to be ratified by a two-thirds supermajority, and this is one of the reasons why it is viewed that the Senate has more influence on foreign relations than the House of Representatives.

The other area that the Senate is involved in is confirming appointments. These could be appointments to the president's cabinet, or they can also be judiciary appointments. It could be to lower federal courts or to the United States Supreme Court. The House of Representatives, once again, is not involved. But to appreciate just how things go through the Senate, whether we're talking about appointments or even if we're talking about general legislation, let's remind ourselves of the overall process.

So, let's just say that this is a piece of legislation right over here. It could have been drafted by a staffer for a senator, maybe with help from some constituents or from some special interest groups, maybe some lobbyists. It will be introduced to an appropriate committee by a senator or by a group of senators. For example, if this legislation is about the Armed Services, it would go to the Armed Services Committee.

Now, the committee could decide to have some hearings around the legislation. Maybe they bring in the Secretary of Defense, maybe they bring in some military leaders and ask them questions about their views about whether the legislation is a good idea or not, or they just want general context. Then they might also have some debate, and then they might decide to vote on that legislation. If the vote passes, if they get a majority in that committee, then it will go to the Senate floor.

Now, before we even talk about what happens on the floor of the Senate, because that's where things get really interesting, it's important to point out that even within the committee, the leadership has a lot of influence. The leadership is generally controlled by the majority party because the leadership might decide that, hey, you know what, they're not interested in this bill. So instead of going through this process here, they might just decide to table the bill, which kind of just puts it into limbo.

Well, let's talk about the reality where it does get voted on, it does get a majority, and it goes to the Senate floor. Now, what's going to happen next in the Senate floor is a debate over that bill. And I'm writing debate in caps because the Senate is famous for its debates. The whole idea of ending a debate so that you can vote is critical inside of the Senate.

Once you get to the vote, if we're talking about a general piece of legislation, if we're talking about an appointment, then you just need a simple majority. So you just need 51 votes to pass. Now, some of you might be saying, "Wait, hold on a second! I've always heard that in the Senate, in order to do anything, you need a supermajority." You might have heard the 60-vote number. The reason why you hear that is because many times, the folks who do not want to have a vote, especially if they think that the vote is going to go against them, could be a group of senators that say, “Hey, I want to keep debating on it.”

This protracted debate is known as a filibuster, which is a very strange word. It was originally in reference to pirates, but it came to mean folks who are trying to hold up the legislative process. It's become a mechanism by which the folks who don't want the vote, who might be against the bill, or might be in the minority, try to hold things up. Now, the reason why you've heard about 60 votes is that generally speaking, that is how you stop a filibuster. If you want to stop a filibuster, you need to do something called cloture, or another way of thinking about it is closure of the debate so that you can get to a vote.

The reason why you hear 60 votes is that for general legislation, you need 60 votes in order to have cloture. So, even though you only need 51 votes for the legislation to pass once you vote on it, to even get to that point, you need 60 votes. This is why you hear that for legislation to actually get through the Senate, you need 60 votes.

Now, there is an exception to this, and that exception is around appointments. Prior to 2013, in order to have cloture for an appointment, you also needed 60 votes. But in 2013, it was decided that for non-Supreme Court appointments, you only needed 51 votes for cloture. Then, in 2017, this was extended also to Supreme Court appointments. So now, for appointments, you only need 51 votes for cloture to end a filibuster, and of course, you only need 51 votes for the confirmation. So, functionally, you just need a simple majority now in the Senate for confirmations.

But for legislation, you need 60 votes. And of course, for things like treaties, you need a two-thirds supermajority. To convict someone in an impeachment, say the president, you need a two-thirds supermajority. And like the House, if we are talking about overriding a presidential veto or amending the Constitution, you need a two-thirds majority.

Now, what I've just talked about isn't extensive; it isn't exhaustive of all of the processes in the Senate. But hopefully, it gives you an appreciation of one area where the Senate has special influence and also how the rules and processes of the Senate can be leveraged by either majority parties or minority parties in order to get things done, and how in the Senate, it is harder for a simple majority to do whatever they want.