Elizabeth Drew’s analysis of Obama’s 30 days [New York Review of Books, March 26] repeats the conventional, misguided, self-defeating notion that the Senate cannot do anything significant without 60 votes, “to ward off a filibuster, or even the threat of one.” To the contrary, perhaps the most significant action the Senate might now take is to call the Republicans’ bluff and let them go forward with a filibuster.

Please note: If Democrats had insisted on real filibusters at several junctures during the past several months they have been in the majority, instead of giving in after failing to round up cloture votes beforehand, Republicans would have been forced to display — in public on the floor of the Senate — their obstruction to Medicare financing, as well as to funding to combat AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis. Harry Reid had cots brought into the Senate for an all-night session in July when Republicans started to filibuster the Iraq pullout bill, but he caved when the first cloture vote was lost.

As I have written before: What is the reluctance of the Democratic majority to call the bluff of Republicans and force them to follow through on threatened filibusters? Is it cowardice, ineptness, or laziness? Rounding up cloture votes to forestall a filibuster is not the same as actually tackling a filibuster. It is ‘filibuster lite’ and the cloture vote becomes a virtual vote, empowering the minority rather than overwhelming it. As a result, Congress becomes ever more opaque and Americans become ever more suspicious of the legislative process.

In 1964, segregationist senators held up Senate business for 57 days, filibustering against the Civil Rights Act. Their filibuster revealed to America the mindset of the obstructionists and paved the way for successful actual cloture and passage of the Act. The civil rights filibuster educated people about the historic struggle and the landmark legislation. A writer analyzing the process of the Senate ought to be familiar with this history. A progressive writer today ought to understand the significance and the necessity of calling the right-wing obstructionists to account for themselves.

David RePass (emeritus professor of political science at the University of Connecticut), “Make My Filibuster,” [Op-Ed, New York Times, 1 March] used the phrase “phantom filibuster” to make the same point:

It also happens to make a great deal of political sense for the Democrats to force the Republicans to take the Senate floor and show voters that they oppose Mr. Obama’s initiatives. If the Republicans want to publicly block a popular president who is trying to resolve major problems, let them do it. And if the Republicans feel that the basic principles they believe in are worth standing up for, let them exercise their minority rights with an actual filibuster.