Ezra Klein has posted a memo sent to President Johnson in 1964, one which highlights just how much the use of the filibuster has changed since then.
As Klein notes, the author of the memo to LBJ could not write today that the then-controversial Medicare legislation should pass 55-45--because now the filibuster would be used to stop the vote from ever happening. As Klein explains:
The filibuster of yesteryear, in other words, was not a supermajority requirement. It was closer to a tantrum. That's not to say it was never used to prevent a vote: Southerners did exactly that to block the Civil Rights Act, and Johnson was forced to find 67 votes to break their effort. But such measures were left for extraordinary moments, not built into the everyday workings of the body. The use of the filibuster has changed, and with it, so too has the Senate. If that transformation is a good thing, then the practice's supporters can make their argument. But the radicals aren't the ones who want to undo stealth rewriting of the legislative process. It's those who want to ignore it.
There are enough checks-and-balances (including the small-state bias of the Senate) in our government system now. Our Republic does not need this supermajority requirement as a matter of routine business.
It is time for the filibuster to be eliminated.
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