Pro 1: Filibusters promote compromise and bipartisanship and protect the views of the minority party.

The filibuster provides a way for minority opinions (and therefore the voices of the constituents of the minority parties) to be heard on the Senate floor, fulfilling the senators’ mandate to govern.[17]

Rachel Bovard of the Heritage Foundation explained,

Far from being simply a weapon of obstruction, the filibuster actually forces compromise. The framers designed the Senate to be a consensus-driven body. If a majority party knows they need to garner 60 votes to end debate on a bill, the necessity of working across the aisle, negotiating, and finding areas of agreement becomes imperative, rather than optional. Without the filibuster as a tool of negotiation, the Senate becomes little more than a smaller version of the House of Representatives where legislation reflects the priorities of the majority, with little regard to concerns of the minority.[18]

Without the filibuster, the crucial tradition of debate is quashed, leaving the majority party to enact its will without checks or balances. As Thomas Jipping of the Heritage Foundation explained,

World history is full of examples of governments that unless they have limits and controls and checks get really out of control. And the extended debate, the filibuster, that’s part of that system of checks and balances. So it’s a very important part of limiting government at least in the Senate…. [A]fter the 2020 election, the Senate is 50/50. Even before that, it was very closely divided. That narrow majority should not be able to force its will on the very large minority anytime that it wants. So it’s part of that design for our government and I think it’s a very important one.[17]

Adds Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA), who in 2025 introduced the bipartisan House Resolution 4 that would amend the U.S. Constitution to codify the filibuster into law:

The filibuster is the single most important rule for preserving bipartisanship in Congress. The 60-vote threshold to invoke cloture on a bill ensures that legislation must receive bipartisan support to become law, allowing lawmakers from both parties to play a meaningful role in the legislative process.[59][60]

Protecting the filibuster is also a case of “what comes around, goes around.” While one party has a slim majority, they may want to eliminate the filibuster to enact their policies. However, as Sen. John Thune (R-SD) pointedly remarked, “I encourage my colleagues to think about that time when they will be in the minority again – and to ask themselves whether they really want to eliminate their voices, and the voices of their constituents, in future policy battles.”[19]

Pro 2: Filibusters protect the intended purpose of the U.S. Senate: purposeful debate.

The intentionally slow movement of legislation through the Senate not only creates a mandated space for deliberation, but it also allows American citizens to read the bills and communicate their policy views to their senators, who can then write and pass legislation that best represents the will of their constituents.[20]

Eliminating the filibuster would fast-track legislation, making the Senate operate like the House, which is neither what the chamber is intended to do nor a productive part of the democratic process.[20]

As Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story argued in 1833, the division of legislative power into two houses

is of little or no intrinsic value, unless it is so organized, that each can operate, as a real check upon undue and rash legislation. If each [chamber] is substantially framed upon the same plan, the advantages of the division are shadowy and imaginative; the visions and speculations of the brain, and not the walking thoughts of statesmen, or patriots…. Each will act, as the other does; and each will be led by the same common influence of ambition, or intrigue, or passion, to the same disregard of the public interests, and the same indifference to, and prostration of private rights. It will only be a duplication of the evils of oppression and rashness, with a duplication of obstructions to effective redress. In this view, the organization of the senate becomes of inestimable value.… No system could, in this respect, be more admirably contrived to ensure due deliberation and inquiry, and just results in all matters of legislation.[21]

According to U.S. Senate history, George Washington remarked to Thomas Jefferson that the Senate was created to “cool” House legislation, as a saucer cools hot tea. To extend the metaphor, without the Senate and legislative tools such as the filibuster, the country could be harmed by “hot,” rash legislation.[23]

Pro 3: Filibusters are an important safeguard against political extremism and corporate influence.

The Senate has always purposefully been the slower chamber of Congress, the one that “was not going to simply ride popular waves when considering legislative action.” The filibuster “frankly is one of the last safeguards against extremist legislators from either side of the aisle pushing through laws that the vast majority of the country would oppose,” according to Pete Weichlein, CEO of The Former Members of Congress Association.[24]

Eliminating “the filibuster would only ramp up partisan acrimony and increase the level of fear and anxiety around American elections,” argued David French, senior editor ofThe Dispatch. The filibuster protects against both minoritarian rule, in which the minority party takes and keeps control contrary to the wishes of the majority of citizens, and majoritarian domination, in which the voices and liberties of the minority of citizens could be eliminated. In both cases, the more extreme end of each party would likely be in control, rather than those willing to work across the aisle. While working through compromise may be more difficult, that is the work of democracy.[25]

David Super, a law professor at Georgetown University, explained another advantage of the filibuster:

[It] serves as a crucial counterweight against big-money politics. Holding a majority to block legislation backed by the corporate elite is difficult when millions of dollars in campaign contributions tempt legislators to vote with irresponsible banks, avaricious petrochemical companies or reckless lumber interests. Forty-one votes to block radical deregulation [by preventing a block of 60 senators from enacting cloture and ending a filibuster] is a much more achievable goal.[26]

Thus, the filibuster protects citizen voices against powerful corporations and unscrupulous senators who might bow to the influence of corporate lobbyists rather than represent their constituents faithfully.

Gordon H. Smith, former senator (R-OR)

Everyone loves to hate the filibuster when they’re in the majority. In most cases, requiring sixty votes to end debate and move to final passage slows down legislation. It requires the majority to compromise, which means Senate leaders can’t stuff every little goody they want into the bill they’re trying to pass.

By contrast, when you’re in the minority, the filibuster is just about the only thing that gives you any leverage. It requires the majority to at least try to work with you to find common ground. It allows you to sit at the table if you’re willing to play ball. It prevents the majority from simply running roughshod over you and your voters.

Although the filibuster receives its fair share of scorn — primarily from whoever happens to be in the Senate majority at a given time — I firmly believe it’s an institution worth keeping. As someone who served in both the majority and minority during my time as a senator and did his best to work with both sides as much as possible, I believe the filibuster has made our country a better place. And as awful as our current politics seem, I believe it’s prevented them from becoming even worse.[56]

Thomas Jipping, deputy director of The Heritage Foundation’s Meese Center for Legal and Judicial Studies

Well, think of it in terms of a two-sided coin, one side of the coin is the filibuster, which is when senators try to end debate on a bill or a nomination but they fail. But the other side of the coin is a positive side and that is that the Senate was designed and viewed, I think, from the beginning to play a different role in the legislative process than the House. The House, it takes action and it’s just a simple majority of members can do whatever they want. Lots of things happen. Passions are flaring. But the Senate was designed to be more deliberative, to debate more. And so, a lot of times I like to refer to this as the Senate’s right to extended debate, which is part of the way the Senate does its legislative business, it always has.[55]

Michael Lucchese, founder of Pipe Creek Consulting and associate editor ofLaw & Liberty

The filibuster is a salutary process that arises from the nature of the Senate itself. By allowing a minority of senators, or even a single one, to hold debate open and thereby block legislation, the filibuster gives additional representation to the several states.

The Founders fully intended for the Senate to express and protect the interests of minorities among the states—not to serve as a rubber stamp for the ruling party.

The Senate cannot afford to let the filibuster go. Congress has already seen so many of its rightful authorities sapped away by an imperial presidency, overzealous courts, and a post-constitutional administrative state. If it is to do the actual work of representing the American people, it needs to claw back these powers and jealously guard those it still possesses.[51]

Con 1: Filibusters promote obstructionism and partisanship, allowing the minority party to rule without a national mandate.

The 117th Senate (2021–2023) was composed of 50 Republicans, 48 Democrats, and 2 Independents who caucus with the Democrats, making the Senate split evenly in terms of broad politics. The tiebreaker was Vice Pres. Kamala Harris, a Democrat.[27][28][29]

However, the 50 liberal senators represented 41.5 million more Americans than the 50 conservative senators.[27][28][29]

Because ending a filibuster requires a 60-senator majority vote, just 41 conservative senators (the number of senators needed to protect a filibuster) in the 117th Senate who represented just over 20 percent of the American population could kill any and all legislation brought by the party voted in to control the Senate, House, and White House. This dynamic continued into the 119th Congress (2025–2026), which has 53 Republicans, 45 Democrats, and 2 Independents who caucus with the Democrats.[27][28][29]

One estimate predicts that by 2040, about 30 percent of the American population will live in 35 states represented by 70 senators, while about 70 percent of the population will live in 15 states represented by 30 senators. That 30 percent will be older, less racially diverse, and more rural than the majority of the country. Therefore, the possibility of a stark minority of senators filibustering and killing legislation supported by the majority of the country only stands to grow worse.[30]

That dynamic is exacerbated when the venom of partisanship is factored into the equation. As Norm Ornstein, political scientist at the American Enterprise Institute, explains,

We’re finally seeing, I think, a level of frustration, over the misuse of the filibuster, not as an infrequently applied tool by a minority on an issue about which they feel very, very strongly, but as a cynical weapon of mass obstruction … And it means if you don’t have more than 60 of your own party members, you’re just dramatically limited in what you can do in policy terms. And it’s basically because you have a minority party that’s not looking to solve problems, but to figure out how to block anything of significance in ... [the majority party’s] agenda, and make sure problems fester so that they have more traction to gain political advantage.[31]

Con 2: Filibusters prevent meaningful debate and slow the already slow work of the U.S. Senate.

In 1957, Sen. Strom Thurmond (then D-SC, though he would switch to the Republican party in 1964) filibustered for 24 hours and 18 minutes on August 28 and 29, the longest filibuster on record. Thurmond spent valuable Senate time reciting theDeclaration of Independence, theBill of Rights, and Pres. George Washington’sfarewell address, among other historical documents and state election laws. The effort was in vain: no senator changed their vote, and the 1957 Civils Rights Act passed 60-15 a mere two hours after Thurmond stopped speaking.[32][33][34]

In September 1981, Sen. William Proxmire (D-WI) filibustered for 16 hours and 12 minutes (the fifth-longest filibuster), halting debate about raising the debt ceiling, an action he opposed. His filibuster kept the senate chambers open overnight, costing taxpayers “$47,500 for the extra Congressional Record, $6,500 in police overtime and $10,500 in building maintenance costs,” over $64,500 in 1981 dollars (about $228,612 in 2025 dollars). Those figures did not include “incalculable extra man hours from personnel on fixed salaries.” The Senate passed the debt ceiling increase the next day in a 64-34 vote.[32][35]

Moreover, a January 2022 study found that not only do filibustersnot increase meaningful debate as defenders claim, but they serve to dampen debate. The study showed that in 2007 when Senate Republicans increased use of the filibuster, there was a fairly immediate 14 percent decline in debate. Three legislative sessions later, debate had declined 28 percent.[36][37]

Study co-author William Howell, Chair of the Political Science department at the University of Chicago, explained the filibuster use

was not because those who were using the filibuster were particularly interested in scrutinizing the merits of policy changes to a greater extent, it’s because they wanted to block policy change. What they wanted to do was grind things to a halt.[36][37]

Con 3: Filibusters are a Jim Crow relic used to block meaningful legislation.

Pres. Barack Obama, in his July 30, 2020, eulogy for Rep. John Lewis (D-GA), referred to the filibuster as “anotherJim Crow relic.”[38]

Between 1917 and 1995, half of the 30 bills killed in the Senate, despite support from majorities in the House and Senate and White House support, were civil rights protections including those to ban poll taxes, employment and housing discrimination, and lynching.[39][40]

In fact, thanks to the filibuster, despite over 240 attempts in 122 years, an anti-lynching bill was not passed until March 7, 2022, when it passed the Senate unanimously.[41][42][43]

Unable to kill legislation with votes, Southern Democrats delayed civil rights progress for years with filibusters, even though the legislation was supported by a majority of Americans, including those living in the South.[44]

The threat of filibuster has also killed several contemporary initiatives that disproportionately impact communities of color, including climate change, universal healthcare, and gun control. For example, the American Clean Energy and Security Act passed the U.S. House but was never brought up in the U.S. Senate because the bill would have been filibustered. The act “would have set new renewable fuel standards and established a cap-and-trade system for reducing greenhouse gas emissions,” but it never got a hearing in the U.S. Senate.[45]

Kevin Kruse, historian of race and American politics at Princeton University, stated that the filibuster has

been a tool used overwhelmingly by racists. . . . It is the preferred choice of Southern conservatives, in whatever era and whatever party, who are trying to slow down civil rights and trying to deny equal protection for African Americans.[46]

Jamelle Bouie, opinion columnist for theNew York Times

If the filibuster did not exist, it is hard to believe that anyone would invent it . . .

What is Congress for? Is it a social club for aging elites and political influencers? Or is it a governing body tasked with managing the affairs of the nation and imbued with a broad mandate for action from the sovereign people through their Constitution? If … you think it is the former, then you’ll have no problem with the filibuster, even as it works to undermine the constitutional system and transfer authority to both the executive and the courts, who aren’t so tied down by arbitrary rules.

But if you think that Congress has a purpose, and that purpose is passing laws, you might want to ... reconsider aspects of the filibuster. Hell, you might even want to get rid of it altogether.[52]

Common Cause, a lobbying group

Each year, important and popular legislation dies on the Senate floor, because the filibuster allows a minority of senators—representing a disproportionately white segment of the country’s population—can stop any legislative action in its tracks.

The 60-vote filibuster rule is undemocratic, and it needs to go.

The filibuster as it is used today is not a talk-til-you-drop marathon session on the Senate floor. Instead, it is a mechanism that allows a handful of senators to shut down a bill behind closed doors.

That’s right: the filibuster does not inspire bipartisan action. It is a recipe for gridlock and gives the Senate minority total veto power over the entire legislative process, even though they lost the election.[53]

Ruth Bloch Rubin, political science professor at the University of Chicago

The filibuster surely makes it harder for the Senate to legislate, but it seems that the extent to which the practice contributes to gridlock or yields anti-majoritarian outcomes has been exaggerated. The real obstacle to legislating in the Senate appears, in fact, to be senators themselves.

There is little evidence that filibuster reform would significantly improve the Senate’s productivity and responsiveness to public opinion. Political scientists have instead found that the most common reason majority parties fail to enact their agendas is internal disagreement.

Notwithstanding the possibility that polarization has encouraged Senate minorities to engage in obstruction, threats to filibuster do not account for a greater share of majority-party agenda failures in recent legislative sessions. The upshot is that reformers interested in increasing the Senate’s productivity might be better served finding other targets . . .

it may be that, despite the principled objections to the filibuster and despite its inglorious historical use, its abolition wouldn’t necessarily deliver the benefits that reformers desire.[54]