Cato and the filibuster

Most people have never heard of an Ancient Roman Senator named Cato the Younger, but his actions are likely to be talked about a lot in the U.S. Senate soon.

Cato lived from 95 BC to 46 BC and had a grandfather who was also a senator in Rome. His named was Cato the Elder.

The younger was serving in the Roman Senate when Julius Caesar returned to Rome after a military victory. He wanted to run for consul, the title of one of the two chief magistrates of the empire.

Caesar also wanted a big political victory party for his military campaign, which would obviously have improved his chances of winning that election.

However, the law at the time was that someone getting such a victory party could not enter the city of Rome until it was time for the parade and party. That prevented him from being in Rome to campaign.

The Roman Senate was scheduled to vote on making an exception to the law to allow Caesar into the city before his victory celebration. Cato opposed this. He thought everybody ought to follow the law without exceptions being made for famous people.

He was smart enough to know the rules of the Senate. One of them was that when something was considered by the Senate, the item had to be voted upon by sundown or it was defeated.

Cato took to the floor of the Senate during the debate and talked and talked until the sun went down. This defeated the measure.

Caesar found a loophole to have his party and run for that high office. He won his election too.

Cato became the father of what is today known as the filibuster. He also went to jail for standing up for what he believed in. That is always a danger for people who have a conscience that won’t let them take the easy way out.

Many countries with some form of democracy have adopted the filibuster because it slows down legislation to make sure there is time for proper consideration or time for negotiation in hopes of making a bad bill better.

The U.S. Senate – but not the House of Representatives -- has the filibuster. It is not in the U.S. Constitution. It is a Senate procedural rule that allows 41 senators to stop consideration of a bill as long as someone is still talking.

The most famous uses of the filibuster were in 1957 and 1964. Both were Democrats trying to prevent civil rights legislation from passing.

In 1957, Senator Strom Thurmond held the longest single-senator filibuster history to try and stop the Civil Rights Act of 1957. After his record-setting filibuster lasted 24 hours and 18 minutes the bill passed anyway.

In 1964, a group of Democrat senators conducted a filibuster to stop more civil rights legislation. That filibuster lasted a record of 60 days. That bill passed anyway.

One of those supporting that filibuster was Arkansas’ junior senator, J. William Fulbright, a Democrat. His party later rewarded him with the job of chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

When trying to get rid of the filibuster, Democrats can be expected to say it is “racist.” They should know. They used it for racist purposes.

Obviously, a filibuster, called the “soul of the Senate,” is not always successful.

Still it has been maintained in the Senate rules because both political parties know there will be times they are in the majority — and hate the filibuster — and times they will be in the minority — and love the filibuster.

Now that Democrats have achieved a majority in the Senate, they want to eliminate the filibuster so they can pass Biden’s many tax increases, a re-vamped form of Obamacare, more rules and regulation on American business, pack the U.S. Supreme Court and other far-left legislation.

With the filibuster, such horrendous legislation on the Biden agenda would require 60 votes in the Senate to stop a filibuster. Without the filibuster, only 51 votes — including one from Biden’s vice president, Kamala Harris — to break a tie would be needed to pass a bill.

Under the current Senate rules, any modification or limitation of the filibuster would be a rule change that could be — you guessed it — filibustered.

Two-thirds of senators present and voting — normally it is three-fifths of those serving in the Senate — must vote to stop a filibuster.

That would mean both sides would need to have all of their members in the Senate chamber as long as a filibuster lasted. Senators would have to eat and even sleep in the chamber in case a vote is called.

Nobody would be able to leave long enough to go shower. It can be said with certainty that such a filibuster of the repeal of the filibuster would really raise a stink on the floor of the Senate.