Word: filibusterer
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Vice President Walter Mondale and Senate Majority Leader Robert Byrd blundered as they moved to shut off an eight-day filibuster-a fight that was actually being waged in support of the President's position. The impatience of the principals was understandable-up to a point. Byrd wanted a...
Carter's position was more complex. Presumably anxious to get his program moving, he did not want to discourage such supporters as Abourezk and Metzenbaum, but he also did not want to step on Byrd's leadership prerogatives. In the end, he apparently failed to communicate to anyone...
The two liberal Senators had exploited a loophole in famed Rule 22, the hard-fought cloture provision for shutting off Senate debate. Just before cloture had been approved by more than the required three-fifths of the Senate, Abourezk and Metzenbaum had introduced no fewer than 508 amendments. Each amendment...
Picking up on a rumor that Mondale was about to crush the filibuster, Abourezk scoffed, "Ah, he wouldn't do that." Metzenbaum asked Senator Edward Kennedy about the same rumor; Kennedy too expressed disbelief. Mondale, meanwhile, was also busy buttonholing four Senators considered soft in their support of deregulation...
Frustrated, Abourezk shouted, "Why did the Vice President come up here to make these rulings? Why did that happen?" Implying that Carter had sent Mondale to end the filibuster, Abourezk declared, "I have been told... that all governments lie ... There is one thing I never thought would happen, and that...