Pet rocks, drive-in theaters, 8-track players and Senate filibusters. One of these four things made a triumphant return to the Senate yesterday. Rand Paul and friends engaged in an ol’ school debate over the Obama administration’s drone policy — for 13 hours!
Whether you agree with Paul or not, actual Senators using the filibuster to actually deliberate about actual policy is a beautiful thing. You almost get a glimpse of what representative democracy is supposed to be. I’m not getting to used to the idea of Senators actually stepping up and actually debating ideas through the filibuster. I recognize that few people in the Senate want to be on their feet for hours on end to oppose legislation. But for at least one day, we got a look into how the filibuster could be used as a mechanism to draw out policy distinctions and grab the public’s attention as to the seriousness of the issues at hand.
Comments 1
Mike — March 7, 2013
I would agree with the power of the senate filibuster as a potential tool for grabbing public attention on key issues. However, it seems trivial insofar as the media often fails to provide adequate attention to these potential forums of public discourse. What Rand did was brave and while perhaps another forum could have been used, delaying Brennan's confirmation served as an important message to the Senate. Whether the public will mobilize around the issue is altogether different.