Thread by @AmoneyResists

.@LeaderMcConnell: the filibuster started as a tool to uphold slavery and then became a mechanism to block civil rights legislation. It was created to preserve slavery against the march of progress and a growing majority of both states and Americans who wanted to abolish slavery.

https://twitter.com/sahilkapur/status/1374426495431581706

The filibuster did not exist until the mid-19th century; well after the Founding Fathers. James Madison was an ardent opponent of even the notion of it. The individual credited with the introduction of the filibuster was was John C. Calhoun, the father of the Confederacy.

Calhoun invented the filibuster for the specific purpose of empowering slave owners and suppressing what was gaining traction as a superior economic model in the North. So he started to innovate forms of obstruction that became the filibuster. It was 100% rooted in racism.

Calhoun not only empowered slave owners, he argued that slavery “created racial harmony by improving slaves’ lives.” He said “never before has the Black race of Central Africa attained a condition so civilized and improved, not only physically, but morally and intellectually.”

So to recap: the filibuster's roots lie in southern senators’ intractable desire to uphold slavery, empower slave owners, preserve inequality, & block civil rights. The filibuster was not part of the Founding Fathers' plan, who advocated for simple majorities to pass legislation.

In the 1920’s, southern senators started requiring supermajorities for civil rights legislation like anti-lynching & anti-poll tax bills. Bills that passed the House, had presidents of both parties willing to sign & IMMENSE public support. But were blocked by the filibuster.

So southern senators used the filibuster to block civil rights bills in the name of “minority rights,” deploying the supermajority threshold and disingenuously presenting it as a vainglorious defense of minority rights, just as John Calhoun had done in the preceding era.

This continued against every single civil rights bill that came before Congress until 1964, when President Lyndon Johnson was able to rally a supermajority of senators of both parties together to break a southern filibuster against civil rights after its 74 day obstruction failed

In the early 1970s, the filibuster was used to block a broader range of legislation. There had never been more than 5 filibusters in a single year prior to 1966, but there were 10 each year from 1971 to 1973 and 18 in 1974. This created renewed pressure for reform.

Some reformers wanted a cloture rule that required a simple majority vote. However, they ultimately conceded to a “bipartisan compromise” to reduce the threshold for cloture from a vote of 2/3 of the chamber to a vote of 3/5—resulting in the current 60-vote threshold.

This is also when procedural changes allowed senators to filibuster without bringing the entire Senate to a halt. So multiple bills could remain pending on the floor at one time—essentially “kept on the back burner”—until the majority managed to get 60 votes in favor of cloture.

This smoothed McConnell’s path for unlimited use of the filibuster as an obstruction tool. Senators no longer had to physically occupy the floor and speak in order to block a vote—bur simply announce their intent to filibuster & the Senate either held a cloture vote or moved on.

This graph shows how the @GOP and @LeaderMcConnell have abused the filibuster as a means of blocking legislation aimed at benefiting the American people; particularly people of marginalized groups. McConnell is a lifelong racist who does nothing but cheat, lie, and manipulate.

I wrote a thread about the DIRE NEED to remove Mitch from his position back in December. We DID THIS by retaking the senate. McConnell’s only chance to continue his obstruction is the filibuster; & we need all 50 Dem senators to abolish it, 2 of whom refuse.
#EndTheFilibusterNow

https://twitter.com/amoneyresists/status/1344522433487892480

Also important to note that the senate was designed to entrench rule by the few in America. California has 40 million people and 2 senators while the Dakotas have 1.6 million and 4 senators combined. We may have a 50-50 senate, but Democrats represent 41.5 MILLION more Americans.