The New-Style Filibuster

The traditional Senate filibuster was tedious, to be sure--relays of Senators, hour after hour, croaking hoarse-voiced recitations of the glories of Southern recipes or readings from reference books. But the filibuster could also be dramatic, full of tension and conflict and suspense. By keeping the Senate in session around the clock, the majority tried to wear the filibustering minority down in an ordeal of exhaustion. Cots were set up in the Senate cloakroom, and bleary, rumpled Senators stumbled from them to answer middle-of-the-night quorum calls.

But all that has changed. Gone is the ordeal, the struggle, the drama. All that is left is talk. Last week a filibuster was going on in the Senate, and it was the dullest show in town. Majority Leader Mike Mansfield took the life out of the filibuster by limiting it to gentlemanly hours: from noon to around 6 p.m. Even if Mansfield carries out his threat to lengthen the working day to twelve hours, the Southerners would still return fresh to each day's round of talk.

At issue in the current filibuster is the proposal by New Mexico's Democratic Senator Clinton Anderson to amend the Senate's Rule XXII, the cloture rule, so that debate in the Senate could be cut off by a three-fifths vote instead of the two-thirds now required. This change would make it easier to stop filibusters; so naturally the Southern Democrats, led by Georgia's Richard Russell, rose up to filibuster against it. With no physical strain imposed upon them, the Southerners could hold out for a long time. Asked how long, Senator Russell said: "Well, there are only twelve months in the year."

While the filibuster droned on, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee recommended the confirmation of two major Administration appointees: former Budget Director David Bell, to be administrator of the foreign aid program, and former Secretary of State Christian Herter, to be President Kennedy's special representative in foreign trade negotiations.

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