Audio: Listen to Political Scientist Sarah Binder Explain the Filibuster

Listen to everything you didn't know about the filibuster on Vurbl. In this clip, political scientist and professor Sarah Binder explains the power and function of the filibuster.

Listen to everything you didn't know about the filibuster on Vurbl. In this clip, Sarah Binder, senior fellow of Governance at the Brookings Institution and professor of political science, explains the power and function of the filibuster.

the filibuster is basically extended debate. And because the Senate doesn't have a rule that allows majority to cut off debate, write the rules. The Senate really allow a single senator or a large group of senators to keep talking, to offer amendments to hold the floor until they crumble, or until the majority get 60 votes to cut them off of minority party members as well as members of majority. They all think the filibuster very useful, and they use it for all different purposes. Often times. It is sort of this classic you the filibuster to block legislation on going forward. Ah, and that's certainly how the minority has used the filibuster to block all sorts of issues of last decade in decades. Other times, minorities use the filibuster, though, to try to slow down the majority to try to get them to adopt their amendments or to change their views and force him to compromise. It can also simply force the public to pay attention to what the minority party is saying, or to what individual senators air saying. So think about Senator Jim Bunning, who single handedly blocked our extension of unemployment benefits well, turns out wasn't such popular position, even amongst Republicans. But it stopped the Senate and it took everybody's attention to really a substantive argument that Bunny was making about how we're going to pay for these types of benefit. It's.