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Opposition Republicans are using the delaying tactic at a record-setting pace. "The numbers are astonishing in this Congress," says Jim Riddlesperger, political science professor at Texas Christian University in Fort Worth. The filibuster, using seemingly endless debate to block legislative action, has become entrenched like a dandelion tap root in the midst of the shrill partisanship gripping Washington. But the filibuster is nothing new. Its use dates to the mists of Senate history, but until the civil rights era, it was rarely used.

As a matter of political philosophy, the concept of the filibuster arises from a deep-seated, historic concern among Americans that the minority not be steamrolled by the majority. It is a brake and protective device rooted in the same U.S. political sensibility that gave each state two senators regardless of population. The same impulse gave Americans the Electoral College in presidential contests — a structure from earliest U.S. history designed to give smaller population states greater influence in choosing the nation's leader. Given recent use of the filibuster by minority Republicans and the party's success in snarling the legislative process in this Congress, Democrats say the minority has gone way beyond just protecting its interests. The frequency of filibusters — plus threats to use them — are measured by the number of times the upper chamber votes on cloture. Such votes test the majority's ability to hold together 60 members to break a filibuster. In the 110th Congress of 2007-2008, with Republicans in the minority, there were a record 112 cloture votes. In the current session of Congress — the 111th — for all of 2009 and the first two months of 2010 the number already exceeds 40. The most the filibuster has been used when Democrats were in the minority was 58 times in the 106th Congress of 1999-2000.