The rise of the filibuster

The filibuster has been around a long time in the U.S. Senate, but it's use has shot up over the past fifty years:

The fact of the matter is that the frequency of filibusters has increased by a factor of 50 since the days of (then Democrat) Strom Thurmond jaw-jacking for 24 hours to stop a civil rights bill. So too has the general use of delaying tactics on major pieces of legislation. Consider some data points.

According to research by UCLA political scientist Barbara Sinclair, there was an average of one filibuster per Congress during the 1950s. That number has grown steadily since and spiked in 2007 and 2008 (the 110th Congress), when there were 52 filibusters. More broadly, according to Sinclair, while 8 percent of major legislation in the 1960s was subject to "extended-debate-related problems" like filibusters, 70 percent of major bills were so targeted during the 110th Congress.

Read that again: from 8 percent--pretty infrequently--to 70 percent, or rule of the day.

And while Republicans easily own the record for forcing the most cloture votes in a single Congressional session (112 in 2007-08, twice as many as any year when the Democrats were the minority), it's obviously a bipartisan problem.