FilibusterThe topic I chose to write about is the filibuster. The filibuster is a very important and unique problem in the US government. The filibuster is used in the Senate to slow down or derail bills. It is also used to block judicial nominees, threatening to be used most recently against Justice Alito. This is a very powerful tool, especially for the minority party. The minority may use it to make a point or to try to get what they want. The filibuster may be very annoying to the majority party, but it will be very important to them when they one day become the minority party. The filibuster has gone very far in its origins. Originally, the tern buccaneer was someone who wreaked havoc on people, most commonly pirates. By the mid-19th century, many of these groups of people organized in the United States, traveled to Central America and the West Indies, and started revolutions. These people became known in English as filibustero, derived from the Spanish filibustero. In the early 19th century, a Virginia senator named John Randolph made a habit of giving long speeches on the Senate floor. Senators soon grew tired of these long and irrelevant speeches and voted to give the presiding officer the right to deal with such issues. This is where it gets interesting because in 1872, Schuyler Colfax, the vice president, ruled that "under the practice of the Senate, the presiding officer could not restrain a senator in remarks which the Senate considers relevant to the report." to the pending question. This tactic quickly became widely used in the Senate and was compared to military adventurers or filibusters. People started saying that a senator was filibustering. (An Illustrated Approach) The filibuster can be a very powerful tool for the minority in the Senate. A senator or his or her minority party can block full Senate consideration of a bill or nomination through prolonged debate on the proposal. This is especially important for the Senate if there are only 50 to 59 senators in favor of passing a bill. This is due to the closure rule. A filibuster can end in the Senate with a cloture vote in which 60 of the 100 senators vote to end the filibuster and bring the bill or nomination to a final vote. It's almost a sort of checks and balances system within the Senate..