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A Fact Sheet on Cloture
In February 1952 the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights (LCCR) held a meeting in Washington to discuss Senate Rule XXII on cloture, a procedure that Southern senators utilized to block civil rights bills in debate by filibuster. In 1952, Rule XXII required a two-thirds vote of the entire Senate to invoke cloture to break a filibuster. Senators had also liberalized Rule XXII by subjecting "any measure, motion, or other matter" to cloture. At the start of each new Congress the LCCR lobbied for a revision of Rule XXII to lessen the obstacles to passage of civil rights bills. Joseph Rauh was the chief strategist for the LCCR's Rule XXII campaigns. |