West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin III says the filibuster isn’t going anywhere, citing it as a critical tool to help small states like his. Other senators over the years, including President Joe Biden, have hailed the filibuster as a recipe from the founding fathers.
But that’s actually a myth, says Sarah Binder, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.
The filibuster — and resulting rules around it — actually came about well after the writing of the Constitution and perhaps by accident, after Vice President Aaron Burr gave his 1805 farewell address.
See the video for more from Binder on how a rules cleanup may have led to the filibuster we know today.
[ Also watch: Fact-checking the filibuster’s racial history ]
The post How Aaron Burr may have created the filibuster by mistake appeared first on Roll Call.
