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41 senators can block any bill
How a filibuster ends
Under the old way, a senator held the floor and talked until they could no longer talk. The only way to break a filibuster was to wait the senator out.
Now the majority treats the threat as sincere. To end a filibuster, the Senate invokes cloture, which asks to end the debate and move to a vote, and that takes three-fifths of the Senate: 60 votes. The majority either tries for those 60 or gives up on the bill.
What it changed
That change made obstruction cheap for any individual senator who wants a change to a piece of legislation. In practice a bill needs at least some bipartisan buy-in, so very few things pass through the Senate in its current form.
Who sets the rules
The Senate writes its own rules for filibusters and cloture. It lowered the cloture threshold on judicial nominations, which used to require 60 votes too, because not enough nominees were getting confirmed. The Senate could set cloture at 50 votes if it wanted to.
How did the Senate get cloture?
The Senate adopted cloture in 1917, after a small group of senators filibustered President Woodrow Wilson's plan to arm merchant ships. The first version required two-thirds of senators present and voting. In 1975 the Senate changed the threshold to three-fifths of all senators, which is 60 of 100. The first successful use came in 1919, on the Treaty of Versailles.
How did senators lower the nominee threshold?
The Senate changed the threshold without amending its written rules. A majority voted to set a new precedent that cloture on most nominations needs only a simple majority. Democrats did this in 2013 for most nominees other than Supreme Court justices, and Republicans extended it to Supreme Court nominees in 2017. Legislation still needs 60 votes to end debate.
Why does the Senate allow unlimited debate?
The Senate's first rules in 1789 included a motion to cut off debate by majority vote. In 1806 the Senate dropped that motion while tidying its rulebook, apparently because it was rarely used. That left no formal way to end a speech. Filibusters began appearing in the decades that followed.
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