IN MARCH ministers of the South Korean parliament set a new world record by speaking for 192 hours to delay an anti-terror bill that would have given sweeping powers of surveillance to the country’s intelligence services. In the nine-day speechathon, some lawmakers wore trainers and read out passages from George Orwell’s "1984". Despite their doggedness, the bill passed. Theirs was a long shot anyway. The ministers would have had to go on for another eight days to block the bill. But this was an extreme example of an obstructive action known as filibustering that can play an important part in political and legislative systems.
The filibuster is a parliamentary process that offers lawmakers the means to delay a vote on a proposed legislation by making long and sometimes irrelevant speeches. It is meant to provide the minority party a voice. It may have its origins in the Roman era: Cato the Younger would speak relentlessly to oppose a bill until sunset (the rules demanded that all Roman Senate business be concluded before nightfall). Today, filibustering can be a test of physical endurance. Beginning on August 28th 1957, Strom Thurmond, a senator from South Carolina, spoke softly into the microphone for 24 hours and 18 minutes in an attempt to scupper a civil-rights bill. He had earlier taken a steam bath to dehydrate himself and delay the bathroom break that eventually came. Listeners are not spared either. In 2013 in a bid to block a health-care bill, the former presidential candidate Ted Cruz read from Dr Seuss's “Green Eggs and Ham”. In 1935 a Louisiana Democrat, Huey Long, recited recipes for salad dressing and discussed the best ways to fry oysters.
