The filibuster today

David Roberts at Grist reviews the history of the filibuster and where we are today:

Step back a moment and appreciate what’s happened: this amounts to an radical change in our constitutional system of governance, drastically increasing the difficulty of passing legislation to address the nation’s challenges. Not only did the country never openly debate it; not only did Congress never vote on it; nobody even talks about it!

Below is a chart he has, via Norm Orenstein: