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After a series of filibusters in the 1960s over civil-rights legislation, the Senate began to use a two-track system introduced in 1972 under the leadership of Majority Leader Mike Mansfield and Majority Whip Robert Byrd. Before this system was introduced, a filibuster would stop the Senate from moving on to any other legislative activity.
The filibuster—an extended speech designed to stall legislation—began at 8:54 p.m. [a] and lasted until 9:12 p.m. the following day, a duration of 24 hours and 18 minutes. This made the filibuster the longest single-person filibuster in United States Senate history, a record that still stands as of 2025.
The term "filibuster" ultimately derives from the Dutch vrijbuiter ("freebooter", a pillaging and plundering adventurer), but the precise history of the word's borrowing into English is obscure. [2] The Oxford English Dictionary finds its only known use in early modern English in a 1587 book describing "flibutors" who robbed supply convoys. [2]
When things actually happen on Capitol Hill, it’s frequently because senators find ways around the filibuster, the custom whereby a supermajority of 60 votes is required to pass legislation.
Sen. Strom Thurmond of South Carolina famously staged one for 24 hours and 18 minutes — still the record — against civil rights legislation in 1957.
The Huffington Post is tracking where Democratic senators stand on filibuster reform — specifically, the "talking filibuster," which would require senators to participate in debate in order to block legislation. If every Republican senator votes against the legislation, 51 Democratic senators — or 50 plus Vice President Joe Biden breaking ...
The longest filibuster speech in the history of the Senate was delivered by Strom Thurmond, who spoke for over twenty-four hours in an unsuccessful attempt to block the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1957. The Senate may end a filibuster by invoking cloture. In most cases, cloture requires the support of three-fifths of the Senate.
Democrats in the Missouri Senate broke the record for the longest filibuster in the chamber’s history on Wednesday while blocking a vote on a plan to make it harder for voters to amend the state ...