For most of this country's history, when senators wanted to single-handedly steamroll a bill they didn't like, they had to be a lot more dedicated than they do now. Taking advantage of the senate tradition of allowing unlimited debate, a single senator could "filibuster" for as long humanly possible in hopes of running out the clock and getting the bill's supporters to give up and move on. Arguably the most famous such incident was arch-segregationist Strom Thurmond's filibuster of the Civil Rights Act of 1957 (a precursor to the more famous 1964 edition), in which he read from, among other things, a Charleston, S.C. phone directory for over 24 hours straight. It's hard to imagine a senator doing that over any kind of legislation today (let alone something, you know, important like the Civil Rights Act).

Nowadays, it's much easier. Over the past decade, the so-called cloture motion has become popular. It is a procedural vote in which 60 senators can agree to end debate on any particular bill or amendment. Although cloture was introduced as a rule in 1917, the allowance for unlimited debate was still a sacrosanct hallmark of senate procedure, and senators were loathe to interfere with it -- that is, until the Republicans took control in 1994 and largely disregarded tradition and precedent so they could railroad through their agenda, the opinions of the Democratic minority notwithstanding. With cloture suddenly a commonly-used tool, senators thought nothing of filibustering anything they didn't like. In fact, now if you want to filibuster you just say you're going to, and a cloture vote is called. Make no mistake: the modern senate's fixation with cloture and "lazy filibusters" is a Republican invention. It was established by them for their legislative convenience. Keep that in mind as you read on.

This is probably starting to sound familiar for those who followed last year's two Supreme Court nominations. In particular, the nomination of now-Justice Samuel Alito was hailed a dark day for the Court, given his authortarian judicial views on issues like (among others) executive privilege, habeas corpus and reproductive rights. Naturally, the Democrats used what they had available to resist: the (lazy) filibuster. Worried that they wouldn't have the 60 votes needed to make cloture, former majority leader Bill Frist (R-TN) and the rest of the Republican leadership whined incessently about Democratic "obstructionism" and how their nominee deserved a "fair up-or-down vote." I will refrain from further use of that term, because it's so disingenuous; it's like nails on a chalkboard to me. Here's why.

The Republicans had a 55-45 majority in 2006, so they only needed 5 Dems to cave on the cloture vote. In fact, many more than that succumbed to the pressure and the final vote was 72-25 (with 3 not voting). Interestingly, the final vote on the nomination itself was 58-42. In other words, had all 42 of those "nay" votes held out on cloture, the nomination would not have succeeded, and Alito would not have made it to the bench to preside over stuff like this. Those voting for cloture but not for the nomination were mostly Democrats of the more conservative stripe, who believed they were voting in the spirit of cooperation and good faith by letting the Republicans have their you-know-what vote even though they themselves did not support Alito's confirmation.

What, you thought the Republicans were being honest? Hahaha. Whew. Ha. Okay. Sorry. Anyway, cut to yesterday. The Senate considered a motion for cloture on S. 1257, the District of Columbia Voting Rights Act of 2007, which would have ended the longstanding disenfranchisement of the 600,000 some odd residents of Washington, DC. The motion failed, 57-42. The Republican filibuster stood. Believe me, this is not the first time that's happened since the Democrats assumed control in January of this year. Countless Iraq withdrawl timeline bills have been killed this way. So what happened to the ol' upperdownvote?

Like the majority of the Republicans' pronouncements, it was insincere and calculated to win the sympathy of the media and of other casual observers. Ever since 1994, there's been a different tone in the Senate. The Republicans will say whatever they have to get their way. They will demand that Democrats be Mr. Nice Guy when it'll work out to their advantage, but they will never, ever concede anything on their own agenda in the name of "good faith." So next time they say that, we can please just go ahead assume they're lying?

And remember, never listen to anyone who says the cloture vote is about allowing the real vote to go forward in good faith. For better or worse, the cloture vote is now the only the vote that matters. If you oppose a bill, a nomination or an amendment, you must vote against cloture for it. It's that simple.