The Rules Committee is holding a series of hearings to examine the history and use of the filibuster in the U.S. Senate. The first in the series was held on Thursday, April 22, 2010. This hearing, “Examining the Filibuster: History of the Filibuster 1789-2008, discussed the evolution of the filibuster, the tradition of unlimited debate in the Senate, and efforts to curtail it from the earliest days of the Senate through 2008.
Witnesses at the first hearing were Dr. Sarah A. Binder, a Political Science Professor at George Washington University and a Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution; Dr. Gregory J. Wawro, an Associate Professor at Columbia University in New York; former Senate Parliamentarian Dr. Robert Dove; and Dr. Stanley I. Bach, a retired Senior Specialist in the Legislative Process at the Congressional Research Service.
On Wednesday, May 19, 2010, the second hearing in the series, “Examining the Filibuster: The Filibuster Today and Its Consequences,” was held. Former Vice President and Senator Walter Mondale was featured as the first witness. Former Republican Senator and Republican Whip Don Nickles was the second witness. The final panel included Dr. Norman J. Ornstein, a Resident Scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, and Dr. Steven G. Smith, the director of the Weidenbaum Center on the Economy, Government, and Public Policy and Professor of Social Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis..
The Rules Committee plans to hold more hearings on the filibuster before the end of the 111th Congress.