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Speaker 1: This Day in History Class is a production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 1: Hello and welcome to This Day in History Class, a

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Speaker 1: show for those who can never know enough about history.

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Speaker 1: I'm Gabeluesier, and in this episode we're talking about a

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Speaker 1: long overdue edition to the Senate rule Book, a fail

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Speaker 1: safe measure meant to keep senators from hogging the floor

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Speaker 1: with idle chatter. The day was March eighth, nineteen seventeen.

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Speaker 1: The US Senate adopted a rule that allowed a two

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Speaker 1: thirds majority to cut off debate and force a vote

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Speaker 1: known as cloture from the old French word for closure.

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Speaker 1: The rule was established after six hours of debate by

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Speaker 1: a vote of seventy six to three. From the earliest

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Speaker 1: days of the Republic, Senate rules have allowed individual senators

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Speaker 1: to talk for as long as they want about nearly

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Speaker 1: any subject they want, and it didn't take long for

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Speaker 1: senators to realize they could use that privilege of unlimited

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Speaker 1: debate to delay action on undesirable legislation. In fact, the

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Speaker 1: stalling tactic was employed in the very first session of

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Speaker 1: the Senate, way back in seventeen eighty nine. In September

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Speaker 1: of that year, Pennsylvania Senator William McLay lamented his colleague's

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Speaker 1: use of the strategy, writing that quote, the design of

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Speaker 1: the Virginians was to talk away the time so that

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Speaker 1: we could not get the bill passed. The practice of

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Speaker 1: talking a bill to death was used sparingly in the

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Speaker 1: first fifty years of the Senate, but by the mid

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Speaker 1: eighteen hundreds it was common enough to earn its own

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Speaker 1: colorful nickname, the filibuster. The term was derived from the

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Speaker 1: Dutch word for freebooter and the Spanish philibooseros, both of

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Speaker 1: which refer to lawless plunderers or pirates. The filibuster thrived

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Speaker 1: in the second half of the nineteenth century as more

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Speaker 1: and more senators discovered its partisan utility. Both sides of

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Speaker 1: the aisle used it to arbitrarily prolong debate and block

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Speaker 1: a vote on bills, resolutions, and amendments that their party opposed.

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Speaker 1: And while some senators objected to the use of filibusters

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Speaker 1: as counterproductive, others defended them as a natural outgrowth of

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Speaker 1: the Senate's open debate tradition and as a vital means

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Speaker 1: of curbing the power of political majorities. The filibusters' supporters

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Speaker 1: prevailed throughout the late nineteenth century and into the early twentieth,

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Speaker 1: but by the nineteen tens many senators were calling for

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Speaker 1: a new rule to curtail the practice. They argued that

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Speaker 1: the body was larger and busier than ever, and that

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Speaker 1: the disruptions caused by filibusters now threatened to derail its productivity.

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Speaker 1: The validity of that concern was borne out in nineteen seventeen,

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Speaker 1: at the tail end of the sixty fourth Congress. At

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Speaker 1: the time, the war in Europe was escalating thanks to

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Speaker 1: the newly unleashed threat of German U boats. President Woodrow

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Speaker 1: Wilson was still hoping to keep the US out of

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Speaker 1: the war, but he also recognized the need to protect

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Speaker 1: American ships carrying goods to Britain. With that in mind,

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Speaker 1: Wilson asked Congress for the authority to arm American merchant

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Speaker 1: ship against German attacks, a policy he called armed neutrality.

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Speaker 1: On March first, the House of Representatives passed the bill

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Speaker 1: Wilson had requested, but it was a different story in

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Speaker 1: the Senate. Many Republican senators were wary of any legislation

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Speaker 1: that might lead to the US joining the war, and

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Speaker 1: they viewed the arming of merchant ships as likely to

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Speaker 1: do just that, and so, with the end of the

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Speaker 1: congressional session fast approaching, a dozen senators staged a twenty

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Speaker 1: three day filibuster to run out the clock. Their effort succeeded,

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Speaker 1: and on March fourth, nineteen seventeen, the bill to arm

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Speaker 1: merchant ships and all the other appropriations tied to it died.

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Speaker 1: When the session expired. President Wilson was furious with the

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Speaker 1: outcome and released a blistering statement to make sure those

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Speaker 1: responsible knew it. The Senate of the United States, he wrote,

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Speaker 1: is the only legislative body in the world which cannot

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Speaker 1: act when its majority is ready for action. A little

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Speaker 1: group of willful men, representing no opinion but their own,

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Speaker 1: have rendered the great Government of the United States helpless

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Speaker 1: and contemptible. Wilson demanded that the Senate adopt a debate

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Speaker 1: limiting rule to prevent further obstruction during the wartime crisis,

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Speaker 1: and on March eighth, nineteen seventeen, the body obliged to

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Speaker 1: be though it wasn't the same Senate that had adjourned

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Speaker 1: four days earlier. The leaders of the new Senate, elected

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Speaker 1: the previous November but not yet sworn in, had signaled

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Speaker 1: their willingness to adopt such a rule, though, On March eighth,

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Speaker 1: a special session of the sixty fifth Congress was called,

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Speaker 1: and the new Senate leaders proved true to their word.

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Speaker 1: The cloture rule they passed, also known as Rule twenty two,

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Speaker 1: allowed a two thirds majority to shut down a filibuster

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Speaker 1: and permitted each member to speak for an extra hour

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Speaker 1: after that before bringing the measure in question to a

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Speaker 1: final vote. In the end, President Wilson decided not to

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Speaker 1: risk another congressional setback and instead made the bold move

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Speaker 1: to arm American merchant ships by executive order. As a result,

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Speaker 1: the rule of cloture wasn't used until nineteen nineteen, when

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Speaker 1: it was invoked to end a filibuster against the Treaty

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Speaker 1: of Versailles. Over the next next four decades, the Senate

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Speaker 1: would resort to cloture on only four more occasions. Many

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Speaker 1: Senators would have surely liked to use it more, but

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Speaker 1: since a two thirds majority was hard to come by,

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Speaker 1: filibusters remained an effective tool for blocking legislation. The rule

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Speaker 1: was eventually modified in nineteen seventy five to lower the

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Speaker 1: threshold required for cloture, changing it from a two third

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Speaker 1: supermajority to a three fifths simple majority. That means that

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Speaker 1: of the current one hundred sitting senators, sixty would be

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Speaker 1: required in order to break a filibuster, assuming there's no

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Speaker 1: more than one vacancy. In today's deeply polarized climate, getting

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Speaker 1: sixty senators to agree on anything is a tall order.

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Speaker 1: So while filibusters remain a part of Senate practice, the

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Speaker 1: debate over whether they should be abolished still rages on,

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Speaker 1: just as it did when the practice first began, yet

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Speaker 1: another reminder that an American politics, some things never change,

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Speaker 1: even the ones that probably should. I'm Gabeluesia and hopefully

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Speaker 1: you now know a little more about history today than

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Speaker 1: you did yesterday. Consider keeping up with the show on Twitter, Facebook,

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Speaker 1: and Instagram, where you can find us at TDI HC Show.

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Speaker 1: You can also rate and review the show on Apple Podcasts,

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Speaker 1: or you can get in touch directly by writing to

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Speaker 1: This Day at iHeartMedia dot com. Before we go, I

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Speaker 1: want to say a special thanks to Chandler Mays for

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Speaker 1: being the patient, long suffering producer of this show through

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Speaker 1: three different hosts. He's moving on to other projects now,

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Speaker 1: so I hope you'll join me and wishing him luck

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Speaker 1: in all his future efforts. Thanks for everything, Chandler, and

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Speaker 1: on that note, I also want to welcome our new producer,

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Speaker 1: cas B. Bias. Thanks to her for producing the show.

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Speaker 1: Thanks to you for I'll see you back here again

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Speaker 1: soon for another day in history class.