Ezra Klein finds a US News analysis that measures just how much greater the use of the filibuster is today. It's gone, according to this research by UCLA Professor Barbara Sinclair, from impacting eight percent of major legislation in the 1960s to over 70 percent today.
As Klein notes:
I can't emphasize this enough: Things are not as they have always been. The filibuster has transformed, and the Senate has followed suit, and it all happened accidentally, not with anyone debating the consequences and implications of adding a supermajority requirement to the American legislative process.
Now would be a good time to start considering whether we want this anti-democratic blight on our Republic to continue.
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