What WSJ Gets Wrong About The Talking Filibuster

Kimberley Strassel recently opined in The Wall Street Journal about the “hot air” of the talking filibuster strategy currently being considered by Senate Republicans as a way of passing the SAVE America Act, a bill that would mandate voter ID in federal elections, require proof of citizenship for registering to vote, and make states purge noncitizens from their voter rolls.

The Senate rules provide two ways to break a filibuster. The first is the mechanical way, by invoking cloture (the Senate’s term for ending debate), which requires 60 votes. The second, which has existed within the Senate’s rules since its inception, is by making senators talk — the “talking filibuster.” 

The talking filibuster is a strategy that, first and foremost, imposes a physical and psychological cost of obstruction on filibustering senators. Second, it forces a public political process that has implications for those who oppose the bill. In other words, it doesn’t allow them to hide behind a single vote. If Democrats want to oppose securing the vote from the interference of noncitizens, they should have to explain why — at length and in public.

Strassel has provided several reasons for opposing this strategy, challenges she calls “false promises and huge problems.” But her essay leaves out critical details, makes some key factual errors, and is based on unwarranted assumptions. I’ll respond to each of her objections one by one.

“Democrats get two speeches apiece — each of unlimited length — simply to oppose moving on to the bill.”

This is not true. The SAVE America Act is coming over from the House in a procedural means known as a message. The vote to move on to a bill, when it is packaged this way, is privileged, meaning the vote is at a simple majority vote, and no debate is allowed. So it is incorrect to say that Democrats get two speeches “simply to oppose moving on to the bill.”

Assuming Senate Republicans vote to get on the bill, then Democrats do get two speeches apiece on the bill itself, under the Senate’s two-speech rule. Strassel suggests “there is no way to end this torture,” but there actually is: physical exhaustion. If the Senate is in session 24 hours a day, a Democrat must be on the floor and speaking at all times. It takes intense physical stamina to do this. To hold the floor, a filibustering senator must stand and speak continuously. He cannot sit, he cannot leave the floor (not even to use the bathroom), and he cannot eat. 

Are there Democrat senators who can do this? Yes, of course. Can all of them do it for eight hours — and twice — as Strassel suggests? The answer is no. It strains credulity to believe that Sen. Bernie Sanders, at the age of 84, has the same physical vigor as Sen. Cory Booker, 28 years his junior. 

This strategy will take time; there is no avoiding that. But senators are not cyborgs; they’re humans. They get tired and bored, and they have other demands on their time. Strassel asserts that there is no end, but in fact there is: Time and stamina, both the physical and psychological kind, will decide when.

“Democrats can easily take turns eating, sleeping and flying home during this marathon. Only one of them needs to be on the floor giving a speech. The GOP, by contrast, will need to maintain almost all its members on the floor at all times. At any moment, Schumer might demand a quorum call — which demands 51 senators.” 

Again, not true. Fifty-one Republicans would not have to sit on the floor, and requiring them all to sit on the floor for hours at a time would merely be filibuster theater. 

Republicans simply need to respond to live quorum calls. The only person with the power to put in a live quorum call — when senators must come to the floor and register their presence by vote — is GOP Majority Leader John Thune. Democrats can suggest the absence of a quorum, but that does not compel senators to do anything. Only the majority leader has the power to decide when a live quorum call will take place. And when he does, the likelihood is that both Republicans and Democrats will respond and come to the floor. If the Democrats refuse to come to the floor, the sergeant at arms will bring them to the floor, per the Senate’s Rule 6.

“Schumer could also move to adjourn, which would restart the legislative day — providing Democrats a whole new round of 94 speeches.” 

Any senator can move to adjourn, but simply moving to adjourn does nothing. The motion has to pass. Motions to adjourn are considered at a simple majority and without debate. Assuming a majority of Republicans vote against a Democrat motion to adjourn, it will fail, the legislative day will remain the same, and there will be no new speeches allowed.

“Indeed, any new question or point sparks another round of speeches.” 

This is also not true. Any new question (an amendment, for example) proposed by the Democrats could be tabled by the Republicans with no debate at all. A tabling motion is a motion that kills the underlying question. It is considered at a simple majority and without debate. If Republicans hang together and table each new question offered by Democrats, there will be no new speeches opened. 

“What is the left’s top priority in 2026? Blocking entirely the GOP agenda. A talking filibuster provides Democrats a pain-free, headline-friendly way of taking the Senate (and by extension the entire GOP Congress) offline for a very long period.”

Democrats would not be blocking the entire Republican agenda. They would be blocking legislation designed to stop illegal aliens from voting in federal elections, an issue that is overwhelmingly popular with the public. Making Democrats do this publicly is the entire point of the exercise.

This strategy will take time. But withstanding a filibuster is limited by human factors: physical exhaustion, political exhaustion, and the nature of 100 people wanting to do other things. Both sides are forced into a negotiation at some point, if only because both of them want to make the pain end. This has a powerful, limiting effect on the length of a talking filibuster.

Budget reconciliation, a process where senators also have the ability to offer unlimited amendments, usually ends after eight or so hours. Debate in reconciliation is limited after 20 hours, but offering amendments is not. Senators can continue offering amendments without debate. This is similar to what would happen in a talking filibuster if Republicans put nondebatable motions to table on every Democrat amendment — every amendment they offered could be tabled at a simple majority without debate. Reconciliation’s endless amendment process ends for the same factors inherent to a talking filibuster: exhaustion, boredom, distraction, and the desire of senators to do literally anything else.

“The only way to get to the endgame on the SAVE Act (the purpose of this exercise) would be to let Democrats have their amendments.” 

Republicans need to be prepared to table (or kill) Democrat amendments, even if they are on issues some Republicans agree with, such as overturning President Trump’s tariffs. This is called strategic voting, and senators do it all of the time. In any reconciliation bill, for example, amendments are offered that are subsequently determined to be “fatal” or “corrosive” to the privilege of the bill. That is, if adopted, they would no longer allow a reconciliation bill to pass at 51 votes. In a Republican majority, all senators vote against those amendments — even when they agree with the substance of the amendment — to protect the privilege of the bill.

Strategic voting is also how Republicans killed the 2007 amnesty legislation — by all voting for a Democrat amendment, the substance of which many Republicans disagreed with, to procedurally tie up the Senate floor to their advantage.

The same concept is at work here. In an effort to break a filibuster on the SAVE America Act, and hopefully to pass it, Republicans would need to have the discipline to table every Democrat amendment.

“Republicans could vote to change the rules in numerous ways that restrict the minority’s ability to obstruct within a talking-filibuster environment.” 

Republicans should not change the Senate rules or use the nuclear option. Strassel suggests that the “only way” the GOP can use a talking filibuster to pass a “clean SAVE Act” is to “strip Democrats of opposition-party rights.” However, she does not list what rights she thinks would have to be undone or otherwise modified. There is no need to change any of the Senate’s rules or to use the nuclear option to execute a talking filibuster.

“Republican supporters of the talking filibuster act as if simply changing the mechanics of the filibuster (returning to a talking version) will magically allow them to jam through what they want. It won’t.” 

The talking filibuster is not a magical strategy, but it is a strategy. If Democrats are going to block a bill that requires voter ID and blocks illegal aliens from voting, Republicans have two choices: They can ignore the bill and do nothing, or they can hold the Democrats accountable. A talking filibuster is the latter.

“Talking-filibuster supporters are posturing as ‘fighters,’ those finally willing to slay the ‘zombie filibuster’ and force Democrats to work for their opposition. That’s not how it would work. So they have an obligation to lay out their endgame.”

Demanding an airtight guaranteed result before bringing a bill to the floor began roughly 20 years ago and is an aberration of the modern Senate. For 200 years before that, Senate leaders would bring bills to the floor with a degree of uncertainty, and the momentum created by debate, amendment, exhaustion, and negotiation usually (but not always) resulted in passage of the bill. Bringing a bill to the floor when you already know the outcome is not fighting, leading, or even legislating. It’s just scheduling.

When former Democrat Majority Leader Mike Mansfield brought the Civil Rights Act to the floor in 1964, he didn’t have the votes necessary for cloture on either side of party lines. According to the Senate’s historian, while his Democrat caucus had 67 members, “barely 40 expressed strong support for cloture.” He spent 60 days forcing southern Democrats to filibuster the bill. During that time, a public political process put immense pressure on the opponents, allowed proponents to execute an ongoing strategy and build bipartisan support, forced both sides into a legislative negotiation, and the result was the filibuster being broken with 71 votes. 

A talking filibuster forces a process. A specific outcome is never guaranteed — that’s the legislative process! — but the first step toward getting any kind of outcome at all, besides ignoring the bill entirely, is to try.

“The (extremely good) reason that Senate Republicans are keeping the filibuster is because they recognize they will be in the minority again — potentially under a Democratic president — and that the filibuster will be essential to stopping gun control, insane taxes, open borders, a packed Supreme Court and other progressive priorities. That’s wise.”

Keeping the filibuster is a very good thing, both for the Senate and for the country. What makes the Senate the world’s most powerful deliberative body is its tradition of open debate and amendment. The talking filibuster is not a threat to the filibuster — it is the filibuster. 

In the modern Senate, leaders routinely, almost always, move to end debate before debate even starts. This is not how the Senate was designed, and it has created a situation that has put enormous pressure on eliminating the filibuster as a means of making the Senate function again. A talking filibuster — using the Senate as it was designed — provides a catharsis that may, in fact, reduce the pressure to “nuke” the filibuster as the country is able to witness the chamber openly deliberate and negotiate on the issues that matter to them. 

Or, to put it in the words of Sen. Robert C. Byrd when he forced a talking filibuster in 1988: “There is no point of having an easy gentlemen’s filibuster back in the cloakrooms. Let’s have it right here on the Senate floor where the American people can see it.”

Americans want to see the Senate rise to the level of their expectations: to tangle with hard questions and deliberate with skill and strategy. The talking filibuster has been a tool in the Senate’s arsenal for 200 years, and returning to it could unlock the majesty of the institution, which has for too long been dormant and increasingly irrelevant.

Rachel Bovard is the vice president of programs at the Conservative Partnership Institute. She served on Capitol Hill for over a decade, including as legislative director to Sen. Rand Paul and the executive director of the Senate Steering Committee.