Commission Six Eight
Covering today's politics and current events through the lens of history and the Bible.
Commission Six Eight
Shutdown Almost Over, Filibuster Under Fire
A government shutdown ends with a whimper, not a vote on funding—but a vote to vote. That’s the twist we unpack as we walk through cloture, the 60‑vote threshold, and how a “silent filibuster” let a minority freeze action while a majority stood by. If you’ve ever wondered why a Senate with more than 50 votes can’t even start debate, this is your guided tour of the rules, the rhetoric, and the real-world fallout for workers and families caught in the crossfire.
We trace the roots of today’s gridlock back to an overlooked 1806 rules cleanup led by Aaron Burr that erased the “previous question” motion, opening the door to delay. From there, we jump to the tariff wars that sparked South Carolina’s nullification crisis, Andrew Jackson’s mix of hard line and compromise, and John C. Calhoun’s procedural creativity in 1836—voting on whether to consider receiving petitions—to dodge direct debate on emancipation. That indirection became a model for modern obstruction, culminating in the cloture math that dominated this shutdown.
Along the way, we hear calls from both sides of the aisle to “nuke” the filibuster, weigh arguments for deliberation versus majority rule, and consider reforms—from restoring a real talking filibuster to limiting obstruction on motions to proceed. We also pause for a faith-forward reflection on “render to Caesar,” and how to stay engaged without letting Capitol Hill chaos set the tone of our lives. If you care about effective government, constitutional design, Senate procedure, and how history shapes today’s fights, this conversation brings clarity and context.
Listen now, then tell us what you think: Should the Senate end the filibuster or fix it? If this helped, follow, rate, and share the show so more listeners can join the conversation.
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SPEAKER_00:It is Wednesday, November 12th in the greatest country on earth. I'm your host, Randy Millet. This is Commission 6-8. Today we're talking about the filibuster that led to the longest government shutdown in American history, the nullification crisis of 1832, and as always, we're gonna see what the Bible has to say about it. So let's go! Congratulations everyone, you made it to the end of the longest government shutdown in American history. We are at the end. The government's gonna be opening back up. They're gonna be blowing the dust off of the computers, turning on the lights, taking out the trash, spraying some air freshener in the room because it's been stagnant for so long. But the government will be opening back up. So congratulations for making it through to the end. I would also like to offer congratulations to the winner of last episode's contest. During my interview with Adam Johnson, the Lectern guy, I asked a question, and the winner will be receiving a signed copy of his book, Taking a Stand. So congratulations to you. And as always, if you're enjoying the show, I ask that you help us spread the word. Follow me on X, leave a review, leave a comment, post on social media, send it to a friend that might like it, and make sure you subscribe so you get every episode as they're released. Okay. Now that the government is set to reopen, let's play a little Monday morning quarterback and do a bit of an after-action report and see exactly what happened. So we saw that eight Democrats, well, excuse me, seven Democrats and one independent finally voted with the Republicans and gave the Republicans 60 votes to pass the funded bill, the stopgap measure, and reopen the government. Except that's not exactly what happened. It is also important to note that Rand Paul, the Republican out of Kentucky, voted against Republicans the entire time throughout this entire process. He did not side with Republicans to open the government, but he voted to keep the government shut down and not pass a continual resolution, blah, blah, blah. Some people say he's a person of principle. Some people agree with that. I personally do not. Reason being is because Rand Paul is a libertarian. So anytime there's a budget proposal or a CR on the table, he votes no because he doesn't agree with the government spending money on anything. And I get it. But the problem is no one's joining you in this fight. So in order to get along, you have to play along sometimes. If you don't like politics, don't be a politician. When you're a libertarian and you pick a hill to die on, and you decide that you're never going to move on this one issue or any issue, then you die on that hill alone. You're not getting anywhere. No one's joining your side. So stop holding up Republicans and stop taking L's. Anyway, we now have enough votes to move forward. But the vote that we were all waiting on was not actually a vote to pass a continuing resolution or a vote to fund the government. It was a vote to vote. Yes, you heard that right. The reason Republicans' hands were being tied and we couldn't move forward in this process, even though they have a 53-seat majority, is because you need 60 votes for what's called a cloture vote. And the first cloture vote is simply a motion to proceed. So before you can proceed to consider a bill, you have to vote on the motion to proceed to consider the bill. And that's what was being held up because you need 60 votes in order to proceed. Very confusing. No wonder Congress never gets anything done. Now, because you need 60 votes to pass a cloture vote, then the Democrats, in this case, which are the minority, can effectively stop a vote from taking place. When a minority stops a vote from taking place, that's called a filibuster. Right? We've all heard the word filibuster, and probably what we know of filibuster is when somebody gets up and talks for a long time. Or for the older crowd, if y'all remember a film from 1939 called Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, he taught us all about the filibuster. I'm now gonna play a little clip just for the sake of nostalgia.
SPEAKER_02:I always get a great kick out of that part of the Declaration of Independence.
SPEAKER_00:Now, of all the procedural mechanisms in Washington, the filibuster is probably the most famous, but also the most misunderstood. Now, of course, we have the famous speaking filibuster, like the fictional example you just heard. Uh real-life examples include Huey Long from Louisiana. He spoke for more than 15 hours in 1935 to block ascended confirmation. Uh he was reading recipes and quoting Shakespeare. He even read a recipe for Oysters Rockefeller. In 1957, Strom Thurman set the record. His filibuster lasted 24 hours and 18 minutes until it was broken by Corey Booker just this year in 2025. He spoke for over 25 hours about I I couldn't even tell you what it was about. I don't think anybody else can either. Nevertheless, he now holds the record. But the second type of filibuster, which is more often less known, is the silent filibuster, and that's what we experienced during this government shutdown. So since the Senate needed 60 votes to uh consider the motion and the Republicans only had 53 seats, the minority Democrats were able to basically hold the hostage and do a silent filibuster and prevent the motion from proceeding, which caused the government shutdown and allowed the Democrats who are the minority to exert leverage over the majority Republicans. And of course, as the shutdown dragged on, there has been an outcry by President Trump and other Senate Republicans to use what's called the nuclear option and basically just do away with the filibuster altogether.
SPEAKER_04:You know the Democrats are going to do that. Most of you will admit the Democrats are going to do that, so why aren't we doing it? And I think only a foolish person would be against that, especially when you realize that these are crazed people. These people are absolutely crazed. And I am totally in favor of terminating the filibuster. And we would be back to work within 10 minutes after that vote took place, and lots of other good things would happen. And it's it's it doesn't make any sense that a Republican would not want to do that.
SPEAKER_00:And here is Republican Senator Tommy Tubberville from Alabama.
SPEAKER_03:Okay, if we need to bust it, let's bust it. Let's knock it down to 51 and let the the Senate know that listen, the power needs to go with the president and let him get something done. If we don't, we're gonna lose our country. It's gonna be over with. And so he's got three years. He's the last Trump that we'll have in office. He's hard-nosed, he believed in this country. Let's give him some support. If he wants to uh blow up the filibuster, I'm all for it.
SPEAKER_00:Now, of course, we're here to now cry to nuke the filibuster from the Republicans right now because it will benefit the Republicans right now. But in the past, we heard the exact same thing from Democrats when they were the majority.
SPEAKER_01:For generations, the filibuster was used as a tool to block progress on racial justice. And in recent years, it's been used by the far right as a tool to block progress on everything.
SPEAKER_00:That was Senator Elizabeth Warren, and to be fair to her, she has been calling to end the filibuster for years. Of course, she speaks the loudest when Democrats are in power, but she has always been a staunch advocate of doing away with the filibuster in the Senate. That is, until about two weeks ago. Listen.
SPEAKER_01:For all of the spineless Republicans in Congress to see. I I want to be clear here. Peaceful protest is patriotic. Holding the floor to protest the Trump administration's lawlessness is patriotic. Standing up for what is right, that's patriotic.
SPEAKER_00:Well, one thing that's not patriotic is hypocrisy. But nevertheless, is the filibuster patriotic? Is the filibuster constitutional? Should the filibuster be done away with? Was the filibuster an essential political mechanism installed by our founding fathers? Or is it simply a tool that allows grown men and women elected to public office to act like children? Well, let's look at the history of the filibuster and find out for ourselves. The word filibuster derives from a Dutch word which I'm not going to try to pronounce, but essentially means freebooter and referred to pirates. The practice of filibustering to stop a vote or delay a vote is nowhere in our founding documents, was not imagined by our founding fathers, and is not something that is preserved in our constitution. In fact, the whole act of filibustering was not made possible until an inadvertent rule change of the Senate Rules Committee took place in 1806 under Aaron Burr. Up until then, both the House of Representatives and the Senate had something on their rule books called the previous question motion, where essentially a majority of the House or Senate could cut off debate and move to a vote. However, Aaron Burr, when looking at the rule books, found this rule to be not only not essential, but he said redundant. So he asked them to get rid of it, which they did. And this essentially opened the door for filibustering. Even still, once the door was open, a filibuster would not actually take place in the Senate until 1837. So the rule change that took place in 1806 had absolutely nothing to do with allowing the minority to exert leverage over a majority in the Senate. It was simply an accidental miscalculation that would lead to unintended consequences. Now we're going to take a quick break, and when we come back, we're going to talk about how the nullification crisis in South Carolina, which brought the country to the brink of civil war under President Andrew Jackson, would eventually give rise to what would become the filibuster. We'll be right back.
SPEAKER_06:You are listening to Commission Six Eight.
SPEAKER_00:Okay, in 1816, the United States, in an effort to establish itself as a trade partner on the global stage, used tariffs to protect American industry against foreign competition. These protective tariffs were levied on raw materials being imported, which protected mid-Atlantic northern and western states. Now, while this was good for the northern economy, it actually hurt the South where they were growing tobacco and cotton because the European nations that were having tariffs levied against them levied retaliatory tariffs against the import of tobacco and cotton to Europe. This led to a progressive tariff war that increased until it culminated in 1828, which led to a 50% tariff of imports of raw materials from Europe to America and an outright blockade of cotton being exported to Europe. So obviously, this hurt the Southern economy. It was so bad in the South that they would call this the tariff of abominations. Now, despite Southern objection, the tariff passed and held until 1830 when Senator from South Carolina Robert Hain opened the debate on the Senate floor. Hain argued that the tariff was detrimental to the South Carolina economy and that state sovereignty permitted nullification when the federal government infringes upon the sovereignty of states' rights. Sound familiar? These are the same arguments that would give rise to the Civil War in the eighteen sixties. Hain would continue to push for nullification, and if nullification was not granted, he threatened outright succession of the state of South Carolina from the Union. The issue of nullification divided the White House. Obviously, President Andrew Jackson was in favor of keeping the Union together. However, his vice president, John C. Calhoun, who was a native of South Carolina, staunchly supported states' rights and became a spokesperson for nullification. And although Calhoun was a Jacksonian ally, the nullification crisis would actually destroy their relationship. Now Congress would eventually replace the tariff of abominations with the lowest tariff, but this did little to satisfy South Carolina, and in 1832, South Carolina drafted an ordinance of nullification, which declared the tariffs null and void and prohibited collection of tariffs within the state's boundaries. Furthermore, South Carolina declared that any action by Congress to forcibly collect tariffs within the state's boundaries would lead to its immediate succession from the Union. Now, due to the ordinance of nullification, tensions got so bad between the federal government and South Carolina that John Calhoun, who was Andrew Jackson's vice president, actually resigned his vice presidency in favor of a Senate seat in South Carolina. And then Andrew Jackson reached out to his Secretary of War and had him prepare for an invasion of South Carolina, all while Andrew Jackson engaged in a national public relations campaign to discredit the idea of nullification in the mind of the American people. But while South Carolina was preparing for succession and the Secretary of War was preparing for an invasion, Andrew Jackson turned to the Speaker of the House, Henry Clay, and asked him to lower the tariffs which had caused the crisis. And on March 2nd, 1833, Congress passed both Jackson and Clay's tariff reduction, and in response, South Carolina rescinded their ordinance of nullification and the crisis had passed. Now, of course, we know that the first shots of the Civil War would be fired at Fort Sumter in South Carolina, but this is how close the United States actually got to a civil war before the Civil War. But under the leadership of Andrew Jackson and Speaker of the House Henry Clay, Jackson was able to preserve the Union for now. But what in the world does this have to do with filibuster? Well, I'm getting there. Fast forward to 1836. This is the last year of Andrew Jackson's presidency. Martin Van Buren is his vice president, who, of course, we know from history would secede him. And John Calhoun, who had resigned as vice president, now held the Senate seat from South Carolina. And by early 1836, the idea of emancipation began circulating. And abolitionists were petitioning Congress on the subject of emancipation starting in the District of Columbia. Because again, they didn't want to mess with states' rights. So their idea was to start the abolitionist movement in the District of Columbia. But senators like Calhoun and others saw the handwriting on the wall. Once the idea of emancipation made it to the Senate floor, it would never cease until slavery was outright abolished in the United States. Calhoun and other senators believed that the southern economy could not survive emancipation. So they began to devise plans to prevent any talks of abolition or emancipation from reaching the Senate floor. And his first attempt was to propose a gag order which would prevent the Senate from discussing emancipation. And while he had the backing of plenty of senators that had no interest in discussing emancipation, they thought the idea of instituting a gag order would open a can of worms, because how can you tell the Senate that they can't discuss something? So they rejected his proposal, but Calhoun didn't give up so easily. With nullification off the table because this was no violation of state sovereignty and his gag order rejected, Calhoun, along with other senators, devised a curious, complex, and obscure delaying procedure. It would vote not on whether to receive the petition itself, because that would dignify the petition, and it would be up for debate on the Senate floor. Instead, they decided to vote on whether to accept the question of receiving the petition. And this indirect method, it produced enough confusion to provide political cover for all members regardless of their position. So this ingenious loophole gave senators who had no intention of even entertaining the thought of emancipation plausible deniability. They could go back to their constituents and say that they had never voted against emancipation, when in fact they voted against voting against emancipation. Now thankfully, we know from history that eventually abolitionists would succeed and that slavery is no longer a legal institution in the United States, and thank God for that. But what happened in March of 1836 laid the groundwork for what would become the filibuster, a political mechanism that is used by the minority in the Senate even still today. It's exactly the same tactic that was used and caused the government shutdown, which lasted now for 43 days. And as it has many times before, the question that is now on the table is should the filibuster be done away with? Is it constitutional? Is it something that we should allow to continue? Is it tradition in the Senate? Or is it an unnecessary delaying tactic that causes more problems than it solves? Well, I think you know my answer, but for the sake of clarity, yes, I think we should do away with the filibuster. It's something that was not intended by the founding fathers, it's not protected in the Constitution, and all it does is allow senators who don't work enough to work less. So I say do away with the filibuster. Now, of course, we know what's good for us now might not be good for us in the future, and that's probably why the filibuster has lasted so long, is because Democrats know if they get rid of it, Republicans will use that against them, and vice versa. However, I think in the spirit of getting back to what Congress should be doing, which is working, that's why we elect them. Do away with the filibuster. Let's put Congress back to work. But I want to know your opinion. So send us a text. We have the button, send us a text. Let me know. Find me on social media, post it on X, whatever. Uh, let me know what you think. Should we get rid of the filibuster? Is it something that's tradition that we should keep? Uh, let me know your opinions and thoughts. We're gonna take a quick break, and when we come back, I'm gonna try to figure out some kind of way to tie the Bible into this. We'll be right back.
SPEAKER_06:You are listening to Commission 68.
SPEAKER_00:Okay, I'm gonna read to you today from the book of Matthew, chapter 22. And this story is when the Pharisees approach Jesus and they ask him a question, and they're trying to trap Jesus. They're trying to put him in a trick box to where whatever answer he gives is gonna be wrong. And we're gonna pick up chapter 22 in verse 17, it says, Tell us then, this is the Pharisees speaking, tell us then what you think. Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar or not? But Jesus, aware of their malice, said, Why put me to the test, you hypocrites? Show me the coin for the tax. And they brought him a denarius, and Jesus said unto them, Whose likeness and inscription is this? And they said, Caesar's. Then he said unto them, Therefore, render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's. So have you ever felt that you were in a no-win situation? Have you ever found yourself influenced by the circumstances where you have to make a decision and you feel like whatever decision you make is gonna be wrong. We call that a no-win situation. You feel like there's no way out, and you feel like things beyond your control have trapped you. Maybe this government shutdown has caused you financial stress. Maybe something at work has presented a situation that you weren't prepared to face. Maybe something in your family life is causing you to have to make a decision that you weren't prepared to make. And you feel like any decision that you make is gonna be wrong. We can't always control the circumstance we find ourselves in. We can't always control the situation. We can't always control the challenges. In fact, we can seldom control the challenges that we're faced with. That's why they're challenges. What we can control is how we respond to it. I don't care how many filibusters happen in the Senate. I don't care how long Corey Booker speaks in front of an empty room. I don't care how many Oysters Rockefeller recipes were read by Huey P. Long. I don't care how long this government shutdown drags on. I don't care how many bad decisions get made by politicians who are overpaid and underworked and underqualified. Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's. It's not our job to intervene all the time. Of course, we need to stay informed. See, the difference between the government of the United States of America and the days living under Caesar in Rome is that we get to hold our government accountable. And we should. And we should be informed and we should be active and we should be in that world. But at the end of the day, the decisions that they make don't really hold bearing on our life. Because we render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's and we render to God the things that are God's. God orders my steps. God's in control of my life. God's in control of what happens to me. Challenges are gonna arise. We're gonna face things that we didn't think we were going to have to face. Sometimes no fault, most times no fault of our own. But it's during these no-win situations, it's in these no-win circumstances that we get to see God move. We get to see God miraculously move on our behalf and make things possible that would not be possible. If you ask every one of the 100 senators why the government shut down, you're gonna get 100 different answers and 100 different opinions. But there's only one truth, and that truth comes from God. Truth comes from above, truth comes from the Word. So instead of letting Caesar affect our lives, let's start letting God affect our lives. And then what Caesar decides no longer applies to us. You see the point I'm trying to make? Outside influence only influences what we allow it to influence. When we walk according to the will of God, we walk a path that's not created by man. We walk a path that's not influenced by man. We let the Holy Spirit order our steps and we find ourselves in a place that God wants us, not the place that Caesar has for us. Putting your trust in the hundred senators that sit on Capitol Hill will fail 100% of the time. But my God never fails. My God is my provider, my protector, my shield. No weapon formed against me shall prosper, and in him shall I trust. So let's not let the things of the world influence the lives of the righteous. Trust in the Lord God Almighty and watch him work on your behalf. Watch him make the impossible possible. And thank you guys for listening to me today. I pray blessings, blessings over you and your family. I pray God blesses your coming in and your going out. I pray peace, power, and prosperity. And remember that you live in the greatest country on earth, and it's up to you to keep it.
SPEAKER_06:This has been Commission 68.
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