Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo seems annoyed that several news outlets are not calling the all-night session being held in the Senate a filibuster. This isn’t necessarily isolated to TPM – folks at other blogs had been calling on Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to force Senate Republicans to “actually filibuster” various amendments and measures designed to force a change in Iraq policy. And I gotta say, I don’t get it. What’s happening tonight may well be a significant event and means of moving legislation forward – but it ain’t a filibuster in the modern or the traditional sense. In a traditional filibuster, the kind we associate with Mr. Smith Goes to Washington and anti-civil rights senators, opponents of a measure get the floor and keep on talking to prevent a bill from moving to a vote. If the bill’s supporters can get the floor, they can presumably move things forward. In a modern filibuster, a bill’s opponents just vote against a motion to stop debate – no one has to give any speeches or do any talking.
Now, what’s happening tonight is that Reid has called for an all-night session of debate. Senators from both sides are taking turns speaking. If the Republicans wanted to, they could yield their time and just let the Democrats keep yakking. At some point, there’s still going to have to be a motion to end the debate in order to get to an actual vote. And whenever that motion occurs, it will almost certainly fail because enough Republicans (plus Joe Lieberman) will vote against ending debate.
I’m not saying I’m against the stunt. I just don’t think it’s an actual filibuster.
There is a related point that Marshall makes – somehow, the media is not using the word filibuster to describe the Republicans voting against cloture. And that’s definitely a mistake.