Filibustering

Via Megan, Kriston Capps asks a question that's been on the minds of many of us in the junior punditocracy for months now:

Why on earth don't majority Democrats hand minority Republicans telephone books and tell them to start actually filibustering? It is only a gentleman's agreement that invests the threat of a filibuster with the full weight of an actual filibuster. So long as Republicans choose to turn every vote into a 60-vote cloture issue, Democrats might as well require them to own up to the mechanism that makes this obstructionism possible. At zero cost the Republicans can currently threaten filibuster on any legislation that comes down the pike; at the cost of reading from the encyclopedia all night long, some of these threats will surely be proven to be bluffs. Better yet, an intractable press will have to take notice when Republicans are forced to make a circus display of torpedoing popular legislation.

And, indeed, I'd like to see this given the ollll' college try. The tricky thing, as Megan almost points out, is that Democrats will have to pick the right issue. Basically, without 51 people on the floor of the Senate--i.e. in the absence of a quorum--the person (or people) obstructing note said absence and the issue dies. Assuming everybody's healthy, that means the Democrats have to pick an issue on which they have--for all intents and purposes--total agreement within their caucus. That eliminates basically all national security issues from consideration.

Still, on energy issues--like, say, a tax title and RPS that benefit solar and wind companies respectively--a real filibuster might just do the trick. And that would provide Democrats with something they desperately need: momentum.