conservative democrats like strom thurmond trying to block civil rights legislation, then you know that in its og form, the filibuster required a senator to take the floor and speak for hours. it was supposed to be a mechanism for protest by the minority. and let s look at the data. this is a graph showing cloture votes in the senate, needed to try to block a filibuster going back to 1917. for first 50 years or so, filibusters are very rare. they start creeping up during the civil rights era. in 1975, a rule change allowed senators to filibuster a bill from the comfort of their own office or home. it became a painless procedural move, a poison pill, rather than an extended stand. so the abuse began. but as you can see on the right side of your screen, things got really ugly with partisan polarization this century. bumping up with president bush and rocketing toward routine, reflexive obstruction under presidents obama and trump.
yet, we join a lot of folks, democrats, republican, finance years and unions, activists of all types. we made a lot of progress in our city. a day later he said he would begin personally marrying same sex couples at 12:01 a.m. this monday. that s when it becomes legal in new jersey. at least for the moment while the state supreme court reviews it and chris christie fights i. clearly, booker is happy to be in the limelight. he is happy to enter ale polarized hyperworld of the capitol. we will find out how washington will change cory booker. that s the thing we played cory booker on c-subpoena 12 years ago, even on morning joe this week. he remind me in terms of that bipartisan spirit of how barak barak was campaigning before he became president and dealt with this reflexive obstruction.