"Congress Filibuster"

In article "Senate Moves Wilderness Bill Forward" the 111th Congress is moving a wilderness bill extremely fast. The Bill would protect 190,000 acres in Southern California and was introduced Mary Bono Mack (R-CA). With a filibuster threat from Tom Conburn (R-OK) this same bill was not passed in November because of Conburn's filibuster. Because of the filibuster threat cloture was used in this instance. The cloture rule is the only formal procedure the Senate has for breaking a filibuster, which is an attempt to block or delay Senate action on a bill or other matter. Under cloture, the Senate may limit consideration of a pending matter to 30 additional hours of debate.With 58 Senate seats, the Democrats were able (with some Republican assistance)to obtain the three-fifths majority necessary to eliminate the filibuster and limit debate on the bill. The final vote was 66 for cloture and 12 opposed. Twenty senators did not vote.

This article supports what we have been studying because Congress was able to pass this bill even though Conburn filibustered because they were able to gain three-fifths majority necessary to eliminate the filibuster. This is an example of how there are multiple ways to get a bill passed even if some oppose. I thought that is was also interesting because we had talked about Senators not voting and in this case twenty did not vote, maybe if more had voted this bill would not have passed so easily.

http://www.towncrier.com/stories/story.2.20090115.html