re: #190 Obdicut

Completely false.

Look again:

[Link: www.mcclatchydc.com…]

Does that show a steady rise from year to year? No.

That you’ve resorted to direct lies so quickly doesn’t speak well of you.

Look carefully at the graph -

notice the drop off after the 2006 election. That was when Reid got in the majority with 51 members. en.wikipedia.org. Prior to that he was minority leader with 45. There is a steady rise up to 2006, with each year being “more than ever before”. Once in the majority, Reid could simply use procedural power to stall any initiative from the White House while Republicans, while in the minority, don’t worry as much about something they don’t like getting signed by Bush. So you have a drop off, but Senators are parochial in nature so they continue to use it as they need to.

And, yes, when the majority extends to both houses and the white house you can expect a spike in filibusters.

As for this term, the black bar that goes off the chart is a projection made back in July - a lot has changed since then (like the Democrat super majority going away). Invocation of a filibuster is different from a threat, and those threats are made innumerable times by just about every Senator as they wheel and deal, so I’d like to see the update. A majority leader will do something when the threat is credible, meaning that you can get a situation where more threats happen while fewer actual filibusters occur.

Just the same, it would not surprise me that the trend continues onward and upward regardless of which party holds power where for reasons stated earlier.