What’s so good about the filibuster anyway?

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    smith
    Jimmy Stewart, from the classic filibuster scene in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
    Hour 1

    With the election of Scott Brown as U.S. senator from Massachusetts, Democrats lost their filibuster-proof majority. There’s a lot of debate at the moment about the filibuster – is it a useful tool or a political tactic to stall legislation?  We’ll devote this hour of Radio Times to a conversation about the history and the use (and perhaps over-use) of the filibuster. Our guests are congressional scholar SARAH BINDER and DON RITCHIE, historian of the U.S. senate.
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    [audio: 020410_100630.mp3]

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