With all this talk about Senate Republicans (plus Connecticut "Independent" Joe Lieberman, who represents the insurance industry) threatening a filibuster to block any health-care reform that includes a public option, some reform advocates may wonder: Why don't the Democrats just tell them to bring it on?

"You wanna try talking this bill to death in front of the whole country and go on record obstructing reforms that a majority of Americans want?" Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid could say. "You wanna read the phone book out loud and recite the lyrics of George M. Cohan songs while sick people are denied the care they desperately need? Go ahead. Make our day."

I was wondering the same thing, so I put the question to an expert on the legislative process. She explained that the days of the filibuster as made famous by Jimmy Stewart in "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" and Strom Thurmond in opposition to the 1957 civil rights bill are pretty much over.

"There is no talking a bill to death anymore," said Jennifer Victor, an assistant professor of political science at the University of Pittsburgh.

"Physical filibusters where somebody stands on the floor of the Senate talking and talking have fallen out of favor. It just doesn't look very good for politicians to have these ridiculous displays. Bills do get filibustered all the time, but we don't see it."

The filibuster, of course, is a maneuver to prevent an up or down vote on a bill or nomination, but these days it's almost always a quiet procedural act rather than a noisy public one.

"The only reason the drama happened in the past is because the obstructionists wanted to be dramatic," Ms. Victor said. "They thought they could gain something politically from making a big public stand and wanted their opposition to be known."

That was the case with Mr. Thurmond, whose 24-hour, 18-minute filibuster is the longest on record. Even his fellow Southern Democrats complained that he was grandstanding for the folks at home, and in the end the bill passed anyway. But his performance assured him a place in the segregationist hall of fame.

In the current scenario, Ms. Victor said, the opposite is true.

"Republicans don't want to shout from the rooftops that they're stopping health-care reform. Not when they can effectively filibuster quietly."

It takes only 51 votes to pass legislation. But before a vote can happen, 60 senators must agree to end debate.

You might think that amounts to needing 60 votes to pass a bill, and you might call it a devious way to subvert majority rule, as critics have. Advocates call it a way for the minority to wield some power. But the Senate calls it invoking cloture.

The cloture rule is a pre-emptive one. The majority leader who has only 59 votes for ending debate usually won't even bring the matter up for consideration. Or if he does, he'll wind up withdrawing it. Then he'll offer changes to win over a hold-out or two and bring the bill up again. Presumably, it will pass.

That's the normal route. What if the Democrats want to go a different way?

They could make a motion with 58 or 59 votes and force the minority to hold the floor to stop it from going forward. But, Ms. Victor said, the floor needn't be held by a nonstop talk-a-thon. It can be held by one senator repeatedly requesting a quorum roll call. Each count takes about 15 minutes, so the senator could read a book and speak up four times an hour, hour after hour. Maybe the Dems could call the senator out of order, but maybe not.

"It's boring," said Ms. Victor. "Nobody's going to watch that."

Mr. Reid also could go out on a limb and announce that no Senate business will take place until there's a vote on reform. But that still would not force Republicans into a blab-fest unless they wanted one. More likely, they would do nothing and wait him out, casting Mr. Reid as the one who's obstructing the nation's business. Or they'd exercise some obscure prerogative to get around him.

"There are so many ways in Senate procedure to stop a bill from progressing, you don't have to be public about it," said Ms. Victor.

There is still a way for Democrats to get around a filibuster, she said, but as a last resort. Every year, Congress passes a budget reconciliation bill that requires only a simple majority and is not subject to the filibuster rules. Theoretically, Democrats could introduce a budget reconciliation bill that includes health-care reform.

"It would probably pass easily," she said. "The only problem is that Congress would have to break up the bill and vote on every tax provision. It's very messy, but it's how the Republicans passed the Bush tax cuts."

One thing guaranteed about a filibuster is that the party on the receiving end will call it shameful politics -- until the pendulum swings and they're the ones doing it. When Democrats filibustered some of George W. Bush's judicial nominations, Republicans howled in protest. Now the GOP/Lieberman axis is working from the same playbook, and so it goes, back and forth.

The bottom line, Ms. Victor said, is that hold-out senators can't be forced into making a spectacle of themselves in a filibuster. Someone has to want to do it, and these days nobody does.

Mr. Smith, it seems, has left the building.

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