Doris Kearns Goodwin: “Let Them Filibuster.”

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It’s been quite a week for my Make Them Filibuster campaign. Two high-profile endorsements! First, Governor Ed Rendell and now historian Doris Kearns Goodwin.

Here’s what she told Jon Stewart last night on the Daily Show:

Let them filibuster. You realize how great they’re going to look, these Republicans, trying not to go to the bathroom?

(My software won’t post the video, but if you go to their site and call it up, it comes right around 3:20)

Also, though some reports have suggested that it is no longer possible to do this under the Senate rules, this is not true. It simply requires the majority to muster enough will and discipline to keep a quorum on the floor. Here’s an account of how it worked as recently as 1988. Making them filibuster doesn’t guarantee that the majority prevails, but it does require the minority to put up or, literally, shut up.