![]() The Majority Leader appeals the ruling and calls for a vote: “You sure about that? Show of hands, everyone?” The presiding officer then denies the point of order: “That’s a no from me, dawg.” Thurmond’s aides kept a bucket ready for him in the cloakroom in case he needed to relieve himself again while keeping one foot on the Senate floor. He did take one pee break about three hours in though, temporarily yielding the floor to allow Barry Goldwater to insert something into the Congressional record. He took steam baths for days beforehand to dehydrate his body in order to be able to drink fluids during his speech without needing to go to the restroom. He had throat lozenges in his pocket and snacks at the ready. White House Press Office Here he is receiving the Presidential Medal of Freedom because mindless hate really sells for a worrying percentage of the electorate. He didn’t just pull this off due to the darkness of his soul. ![]() Horrific racism aside, you gotta admit this was an unbelievable feat of endurance for a 54-year-old heavy smoker. This guy really didn’t want black people to vote. Strom Thurmond set the record by spending 24 hours and 18 minutes on the floor trying to prevent the passage of the Civil Rights Act. Because if the opposition can get 41 senators to agree to never let it come to a vote, then the bill is as good as dead. This ostensibly means that if a bill seeks to address a problem that has been turned into a highly polarized wedge issue, it has to achieve 60% support in order to guarantee it passes instead of 51%. More often than not, Senators will announce their intention to filibuster a bill before it even reaches the Senate floor, so the opposing side can at least plan out a strategy to prevent that from happening. Thankfully, this almost never happens out of nowhere. A group of Senators in the minority could conspire to prevent the passage of a bill by making sure they have enough votes to prevent cloture from happening and keep the debate going on indefinitely, purely out of sheer partisan spite. This is where the filibuster comes into play. If there is an objection, they have to file a cloture motion, which requires a supermajority of 60% in order to pass and move on to the vote. ![]()
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