The filibuster has a long history in U.S. political life. It was used to hold up the Treaty of Versailles at the end of World War I and to block civil rights legislation for more than a decade. It has stopped judicial nominations and legislation. It has been pivotal, it has been political, it has been petty.

Steve Mellon, Post-Gazette A dozen protesters hold signs outside the Regional Enterprise Tower offices of U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter, Downtown, yesterday urging Specter not to support legislation that would deny Democrats the ability to filibuster President Bush's judicial nominees. From right are Karen Peterson of Squirrel Hill, Katie Davis of Monroeville and Kim Evert of Wilkinsburg. Click photo for larger image.

The U.S. Senate tradition of smothering action with words has produced discourses eloquent and inane on everything from the U.S. Constitution to Shakespeare to potlikker recipes -- and that was just Huey P. Long in his 15¹/₂-hour soliloquy on June 12-13, 1935.

Long, the fiery Louisiana Democrat, used the filibuster to help the disenfranchised, as well as to help himself in bitter struggles against his political rivals.

Over the past two years, Senate Democrats have used the filibuster to stop 10 of President Bush's 229 judicial nominees and the Republicans are not happy about it. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., has threatened to end filibusters on judicial nominees by allowing debate to be cut off with a simple majority of 51 votes instead of a supermajority of 60. Democrats are threatening to tie up all sorts of legislation if Republicans trigger this "nuclear option."

The tradition of unlimited floor debate goes back at least as far as the Roman Republic. The Roman Senate allowed it, and it was employed then as now to delay or derail proposed legislation.

Extended debate used in this way is found in most legislative bodies, but many enact time limits or voting procedures to quell it.

In the early years of the U.S. Congress, representatives as well as senators could use the filibuster technique. As the House grew larger, it revised its rules to limit debate.

The filibuster tradition continued in the smaller Senate, though. It began to be used as a formal tactic in the 1830s in disputes between President Andrew Jackson and his supporters over the Bank of the United States, according to Martin Gold and Dimple Gupta in an article in The Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy.

In 1837, "Opponents [of Jackson] talked and talked," reported Sen. Thomas H. Benton, D-Mo. "It was evident that consumption of time, delay and adjournment, was their plan."

Jackson supporters responded by "fortif[ying] themselves with an ample supply, ready in a nearby committee room, of cold hams, turkeys, beef, pickles, wines, and cups of hot coffee." They triumphed in the end, and anti-Jacksonians stormed out.

The term filibuster meant pirate, and in the 1850s became popular to describe efforts to hold the Senate floor in order to derail legislation. Senators practicing such tactics were compared with military adventurers in other countries. But the Senate held fast to the tradition.

In 1841, when the Democratic minority hoped to block a bank bill promoted by Henry Clay of Kentucky, Clay threatened to change Senate rules to allow the majority to close debate. Benton angrily rebuked his colleague, accusing Clay of trying to stifle the Senate's right to unlimited debate.

That right remained in place until 1917, when senators adopted a rule that allowed the end of debate with a two-thirds majority vote -- known as "cloture."

It was used two years later in 1919, when the Senate voted to end a filibuster against the Treaty of Versailles.

In the decades after it passed the cloture rule, the Senate tried numerous times to kill filibusters, but only rarely managed to secure the necessary two-thirds vote.

Floyd Riddick, the Senate parliamentarian from 1964-74, described the way things worked in a 1978 interview with the Senate Historical Office:

"The Chair in the Senate at every hiatus continues restating the question: 'The question is on so-and-so.' He dares to put the question until no senator cares any longer to speak.

"When no senator seeks recognition any further, he puts the question. But even if he started to put the question and some senator rises, 'Mr. President.' He will pause right there and recognize the senator, and off we go on debate again."

During the 1930s, Long effectively used the filibuster to various ends. During his famous 1935 filibuster, aimed at keeping political rivals from securing lucrative National Recovery Administration jobs, Long read and discussed the entire Constitution, section by section, quoted Shakespeare, and shared his recipes for fried oysters and potlikkers.

Long suggested to Vice President John Nance Garner, who was presiding, that all the slumbering senators should be forced to listen to him, according to Senate accounts. Garner replied: "That would be unusual cruelty under the Bill of Rights."

Long finally succumbed to biological imperatives and his filibuster failed.

Filibusters were used by Southern senators repeatedly to block civil rights legislation in the 1950s and 1960s. South Carolina's Strom Thurmond filibustered for 24 hours and 18 minutes against the Civil Rights Act of 1957, the longest filibuster on record.

Filibusters were used again in 1964 as another effort was made to pass civil rights legislation. By June 10, the Senate had spent 57 working days on the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Democratic Whip Hubert Humphrey of Minnesota believed he had the 67 votes needed to invoke cloture and call for a vote.

As debate wrapped up, the gallery and all the standing room at the back of the Senate chambers were full, and hundreds waited outside for the outcome.

The clerk called the roll and got no response when he reached "Mr. Engle." Clair Engle, the California senator, was suffering from a brain tumor and could not speak. But he raised a frail arm and pointed to his eye to indicate his affirmative vote of "aye," a powerful moment in the proceedings.

In the end, the vote was 71-29, and nine days later the landmark legislation itself passed.

In 1968, the filibuster was used for the first time to block a Supreme Court nominee, Abe Fortas, a longtime confidante of President Lyndon Johnson.

Fortas became the first sitting associate justice, nominated for chief justice, to testify at his own confirmation hearing. Although the Judiciary Committee recommended confirmation, floor consideration sparked the filibuster. On Oct. 1, the Senate failed to invoke cloture. Johnson withdrew the nomination.

The cloture rule was changed to require a three-fifths majority instead of a two-thirds majority in 1975, so now 60 votes instead of 67 are needed to end debate.

Filibusters have been proliferating in subsequent years.

According to the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service, cloture votes to end a filibuster were held on 14 appeals court nominations from 1980 to 2000.

Democratic senators filibustered 10 of President Bush's 229 first-term judicial nominees; this confirmation rate exceeded other first-term presidents since 1980.