The legislative accomplishments of the 111th Congress have been
shaped by senators’ actual or threatened use of the filibuster
and responses to it. In following the legislative machinations
on both sides of the health reform debate that consumed much of
the 111th Congress’s first year, I’ve become more aware of the
role of the filibuster and my own inadequate understanding of
it. In this and five subsequent posts, I will explore the
history and use of the filibuster, countermeasures to it, and
proposals for changes to rules governing it. This is my 2010
Summer Blog Project. In this post I first introduce some basic
concepts and dispense with a few topics that I will not develop
in detail (though they are important and explored at great
length elsewhere). Following that, I present the schedule for
subsequent posts. At the end of this post I list selected
references that are main, but not exclusive, sources of
information for this series or make for good additional reading.
The least important but among the mor