American Government and Politics Today, Brief Edition, 2014-2015

CHAPTER NiNE • THE CoNgREss 203

congressional mail is now about $10 million to $15 million a year. The cost of franking has

dropped since 1990 due to the growth of Internet home pages, e-mail, blogs, Facebook,

and Twitter. Typically, the costs for these mailings rise substantially during election years.

Permanent Professional staffs. More than thirty thousand people are employed in the

Capitol Hill bureaucracy. About half of them are personal and committee staff members.

The personal staff includes office clerks and assistants; professionals who deal with media

relations, draft legislation, and satisfy constituency requests for service; and staffers who

maintain local offices in the member’s home district or state.

The average Senate office on Capitol Hill employs about thirty staff members, and

twice that number work on the personal staffs of senators from the most populous states.

House office staffs typically are about half as large as those of the Senate. The number of

staff members in both chambers has increased dramatically since 1960.

Privileges and immunities under the Law. Members of Congress also benefit from a

number of special constitutional protections. Under Article I, Section 6, of the Constitution,

at issue

It is not in the Constitution, but it is an important

institution. It is the filibuster, and it follows from

Senate Rule 22, which allows for unlimited debate.

Throughout American history, senators could tie up

the Senate’s business by talking indefinitely. In 1975,

Rule 22 was revised. Since that year, a vote by sixty

senators is required to stop floor debate (instead of the

previous sixty-seven). A second significant change in

Senate practice developed, however—today, senators

don’t actually have to talk to hold a filibuster. All they

have to do to maintain a filibuster is to announce that

a filibuster exists. The practical effect has been to cre-

ate a new rule that all important legislation requires

sixty votes in the Senate. Some want the filibuster abol-

ished. Others do not agree.

The FiLibusTer is NOT

eveN CONsTiTuTiONaL

Critics of the filibuster argue that it has no constitu-

tional basis and implicitly violates many actual provi-

sions of the Constitution. After all, the Constitution

requires a supermajority—more than a simple major-

ity—only for special situations such as ratifying trea-

ties, proposing constitutional amendments, overriding

presidential vetoes, and convicting impeached officials.

Consider this statement by Alexander Hamilton

in Federalist Paper No. 75: “All provisions which

require more than a majority of any [legislative] body

to its resolutions have a direct tendency to embarrass

the operations of the government and an indirect one

to subject the sense of the majority to that of the minor-

ity.” Hamilton was writing about a proposal to require

that more than half of a chamber’s members be pres-

ent to convene a session, but his argument certainly

applies to whether a body should need more than a

majority of its members to take a vote.

The FiLibusTer as Damage CONTrOL

True, filibusters today are not as colorful as they were

before 1975, when senators were forced to read out of

a telephone book or even wear diapers to keep a filibus-

ter going. Yet the current filibuster system continues

to provide an important protection for minority rights.

Why shouldn’t Congress be forced to obtain broad sup-

port for important legislation? It would be dangerous

to allow major taxation and spending measures to be

decided by a bare majority vote. Public opinion polling

has shown that the filibuster is quite popular among

the public at large. Clearly, Americans see the impor-

tance of slowing down legislation created by only a

single party in Congress. The filibuster still serves a

useful purpose, so let’s keep it.

FOr CriTiCaL aNaLYsis

What would be likely to happen if the filibuster were abolished?

is iT Time TO geT riD OF The FiLibusTer?

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