Thread by @ChadPergram

1) The Hitchhiker's Guide to Understanding Potential Changes to the Senate Filibuster:

2) The iconic, 1939 Frank Capra classic starring Jimmy Stewart iconized the filibuster in the American political experience. Social studies and history teachers showed the film in class to demonstrate the filibuster.

3) In the film, Stewart’s character seizes the Senate floor for hours, blocking a spending bill and exposing graft. This is what we would contemporarily refer to as a “speaking” filibuster.

4) His voice raw, Stewart’s character finally collapses from exhaustion in the well of the Senate, having spoken for hours. But the movie only presents one form of filibuster: The speaking filibuster. That's only a fraction of what today's debate is about.

5) For starters: A filibuster is any Senate tactic to hold up a bill or a nomination. In fact, some may argue that the term “filibuster” is pejorative. By it’s nature, the Senate features “unlimited debate.” That’s where the filibuster kicks in.

6) If a senator has the floor, and wants to talk. And talk. And talk. Well, they are can delay something – by talking.

But that’s not the way most “filibusters” work. And that’s why some senators take offense at the accusation that they are even conducting a filibuster.

7) If the Senate rules allow unlimited debate, a senator may contend all he or she is doing is exercising their prerogatives. After watching “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington,” many believe filibusters are only when a senator holds the floor for hours on end.

8) Not necessarily. It’s not a filibuster if senator isn’t actually delaying something. If there is nothing in the parliamentary queue and a senator ties up the floor for 12 hours, no dice. No filibuster.

9) There’s a highly technical term for such a senatorial phenomenon. On Capitol Hill, we call it “a really long speech.”

10) Some sources credit Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) with the fourth longest filibuster in history. Twenty-one hours and 18 minutes, garnished with a serving of “Green Eggs and Ham.”

11) Cruz’s 2013 sermon didn’t stymie anything. Then Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) had teed up a procedural vote on the spending bill Cruz was purportedly “filibustering.”

12) Cruz began his oratory on Tuesday afternoon, September 24, 2013. But the Senate clipped him midday Wednesday, September 25, 2013. That’s because, by rule, Reid’s procedural motion automatically ripened at 1 pm Wednesday.

13) There was nothing Cruz could do about it. Reid couldn’t really move the vote up earlier (maybe by a couple of hours, but that parliamentary point is embedded deep into the terra firma). So, even though Cruz gave a lengthy speech, one might argue this wasn't a true filibuster

14) Most “filibusters” are invisible to the lay observer. Imperceptible. Behind the curtain. And if you weren’t familiar with the dark arts of the Senate, you may never even know a filibuster is unfolding.

15) Senate Rule XXII (22) deals with “filibusters.” It lays out the Senate process to “bring to a close the debate upon any measure, motion, other matter pending before the Senate, or the unfinished business.”

16) A “motion to proceed” to start work on bill is subject to “debate,” and thus, a filibuster. Rule XXII permits the Senate to “bring to a close” that debate if 60 senators are willing to vote yes. This applies when trying to start or end debate on a bill.

17) But the convoluted part is that “debate” in the Senate doesn’t actually mean “debate.” Yes, senators may delay the Senate from considering bills through extended “debate” (e.g. – a filibuster). But in the current Senate, “debate” doesn’t mean senators are actually "debating."

18) In other words, senators can delay the Senate from starting work on a measure – without even being there. The same with closing work on an issue and advancing to a final vote.

This is where the mystery enters.

19) Sometimes it’s clear to Senate leaders they need to deploy Rule XXII to “invoke cloture” to end a “filibuster in absentia.” The leaders know they don’t have 60 votes to halt “debate.”

20) Other times, the leaders confer and it’s clear they will need to “file cloture” to end a filibuster. So they set the Senate on a course to “break a filibuster,” both to get onto the bill and close debate on the bill.

21) Such “cloaked” filibusters are the preferred delaying tactic in today’s Senate - not a “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington”-style filibuster.

22) So how exactly does one abolish the phantom filibuster but somehow require senators to seize the floor with actual oratory if they want to clog the works?

Do you change Rule XXII?

23) “His preference is not to make changes to the filibuster rules,” said White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki.

Parsing the precision of Psaki’s statement is important.

24) A Senate rules change is subject to a filibuster itself. It takes 67 votes (!) to end a filibuster to a proposed rules change. That means it’s a near mathematical improbability the Senate would ever have the votes to actually change Rule XXII.

25) So, senators would have to go another route. They might opt to establish a new “precedent” for filibusters. There are 44 Standing Rules of the Senate. But the Senate relies of a voluminous book of precedents for many of its operations.