Filibuster or Bust

Imagine you're a United States senator. (For political junkies, this may not be the first time.) You're absolutely desperate to stop a proposed piece of legislation. But when you tally the vote pledges, you realize you don't have enough allies to defeat the bill. You have only one option: stall.

That's the idea behind the filibuster, an age-old tactic that allows senators to use parliamentary procedure to wear down opponents. We usually think of a filibuster as a long speech by a single senator, but the term actually covers all kinds of delaying tactics, like offering pointless amendments and then requiring a roll-call vote. (That usually kills half an hour.)

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