Only 26% of Americans know how many Senators is required to break a filibuster.
By poingly
@poingly (605)
United States
January 29, 2010 5:39pm CST
I find this shocking, but a recent poll was released today that only 26% of Americans know the number of Senators required to break a filibuster. This is just a shock to me, and sort of falls into that whole "Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader?" category style question that I think we should all know as responsible citizens.
Just curious people's thoughts on this.
1 person likes this
5 responses
@Latrivia (2878)
• United States
30 Jan 10
I wonder what the percentage of people are who know what legislation can be filibustered and what can't. I bet it would be lower than 26%.
I don't think 5th graders would know the answer to that question, either. I don't recall learning anything about how congress works until at least 7th or 8th grade.
1 person likes this
@Taskr36 (13963)
• United States
30 Jan 10
Yeah, I'll bet that number would be lower than 5%.
Lately people on mylot seem to be overestimating the knowledge of 5th graders. Last week someone started a thread claiming the average 5th grader could name their favorite founding father easily. I have to wonder what 5th grade classes these people are going to.
@Taskr36 (13963)
• United States
2 Feb 10
It's not so much when you learn something, but how often you access it in your brain. There are millions of things you learned as a child that you never forget like reading, math, etc. and plenty of things you've learned in the past month that you'll probably forget. I learned about congress, the supreme court, and how that all works in 8th grade. Most people probably learned it around the same time but beyond maybe taking a test a week or two later they never bothered to access that information so it was left buried until they just forgot.
Beyond learning the states and capitals, and a fair bit of history, I really hadn't been taught much of how government works by 5th grade although we did learn a bit about elections because that was when the primaries for the 1988 election were going on.
@Taskr36 (13963)
• United States
30 Jan 10
I'll bet that if you asked that question before 2009 the results would have been much MUCH lower. Right now 26% know because it's information they are bombarded with it on a regular basis as democrats have been shutting out the republicans in the legislative process.
@Taskr36 (13963)
• United States
30 Jan 10
Of course the filibuster has never been used for every bill and every amendment. That's not happening right now either so I don't know why you felt the need to make such an obvious statement. Perhaps you believed that lie that Biden told a few weeks ago.
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2010/jan/22/joe-biden/biden-says-every-senate-decision-now-requires-60-v/
@anniepa (27955)
• United States
30 Jan 10
OK, I guess I made the same mistake as the Vice President did by failing to say "big" or "major" bills and it's not "every single" bill, just the important ones.
: http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2009/11/the_filibuster_has_gone_from_a.html
@anniepa (27955)
• United States
30 Jan 10
Sad to say I'd have probably guess it would have been even lower. I'm constantly amazed at the people I talk to who think as long as a party has a simple majority in both the House and the Senate they can pass anything they want, just like that. Heck, they might not even teach that in school at all these days so if people grow up to be apathetic they never learn much of anything about our government or our history.
Annie
@lakerfanster (2577)
•
30 Jan 10
Why would and should they know about something like this? Most legislation that is passed has the majority backing of most of the senate. This kind of thing does not come up all that regularly.
