filibuster: a protracted speech given in the Senate for the purpose of delaying or preventing a vote

Filibusters are possible because the U. S. Constitution does not place any limits on the amount of time that legislators can hold the floor during a debate. The House instituted rules limiting the length of its members' speeches, but senators can still declaim for as long as they want on any topic of their choosing. Since the 1840s, they have used this obstructionist tactic as a way of blocking legislation. The late Senator Strom Thurmond of South Carolina holds the record for filibustering by one individual: 24 hours and 18 minutes. He expended this marathon effort in an unsuccessful attempt to block passage of the 1957 Civil Rights Act. According to a 2007 U. S. News & World Report article recalling the event, Sen. Thurmond took a steam bath to dehydrate himself, making a visit to the men's room less likely to be necessary, and carried malted milk balls and throat lozenges to keep himself going. The Senate passed a rule of "cloture" in 1917, allowing a two-thirds majority to declare the debate closed and force a vote. The number necessary for cloture was reduced to sixty senators in 1975.

Filibuster derives from the Dutch word vrijbuiter 'freebooter', or one who makes off with booty. (Booty probably comes from an Old English word for stolen goods, or ill-gotten gains.) During the seventeenth century, when the word entered the language in the form of flibuster, piratical freebooters were a well-known phenomenon on the high seas, especially in the colonial waters of the West Indies. In the nineteenth century, the word referred to gangs of adventurers from the United States who headed to Central America to foment revolution. In other words, filibusters were troublemakers of one sort or another. The Oxford English Dictionary's first recorded use of filibuster as a legislative act comes from an 1890 Congressional Record: "A filibuster was indulged in . . . which lasted for nine continuous calendar days." Presumably, more than one senator rose to speak during this time.

Filibuster can also, of course, be a verb. Longfellow writes in 1853 about adventurous "youths . . . inclined to filibustering in Cuba." As the meaning of the noun evolved, the verb evolved along with it. Today filibustering takes place in the Senate. As freebooters once boarded ships, forcing them off course, filibustering senators can now hijack the ship of State and sail it in a new direction.