0 to make a long speech in order to delay or prevent a new law being made:
Conceivably, supporters of the law could filibuster to prevent it from being revised.
1 a long speech that someone makes in order to delay or prevent a new law being made:
2 (in a legislature) a way of preventing a law from being passed by using the rules or making long speeches to delay voting on it
They can do so because of arcane rules that require a 60-vote majority to stop a filibuster.
Last year the Nevada Senator staged a one-day filibuster, standing on the Senate floor and talking for eight hours and 35 minutes straight.
During the civil rights battles of the 1950s and early 1960s, he defeated many anti-discrimination bills through filibusters and other delaying tactics.
He threatened a last-minute filibuster against the measure.
Of course, by then he realized that his filibuster-based argument did not in fact hold.
A filibuster can never be successfully waged unless the time for adjournment is definitely and irrevocably fixed.
There would be no limitation on the adjournment and, hence, no possibility of a filibuster succeeding.
The lengthy filibuster gave the butchers ample time to prepare their defence.
