The idea of a filibuster remains a strong tradition in the Missouri Senate.
A filibuster is a debate with people talking for a long time for or against a specific issue.
Also, while there are several reasons for staging one, a filibuster's main purpose is to try to keep a bill from passing the Senate or becoming law.
Twice in the last three weeks, the Senate has started to debate a bill in the afternoon, and continued the conversation past 6 the next morning.
(Technically, all of the debate occurred on the same "legislative" day, because that day doesn't end until the Senate "adjourns" for the day. As long as a filibuster continues, there is no adjournment - so 7 or 8 a.m. still is, officially, the day before as far as the Senate's official record is concerned.)
The first filibuster three weeks ago ended after 13 hours.
This week's version still was going strong at more than 29 hours as of Tuesday night, with some participants talking about setting records for the longest filibuster in Senate history.
The records aren't clear - but there have been a couple of instances in the last 50 years that compete for that record-breaking length.
In 1970, then Senate President Pro Tem Earl Blackwell, D-Hillsboro, led a three-day filibuster against Gov. Warren Hearnes' proposal to raise the state's top income tax rate from 4 percent to 6 percent.
However, the records appear to show, after a lengthy talkfest each day, the Senate adjourned for a few hours, then came back and renewed the filibuster.
Still, veteran reporter Phill Brooks of Missouri Digital News, and a retired University of Missouri Journalism School professor, recalled: "It went so long that senators set up cots to sleep outside the chamber."
More recently, a May 1999 filibuster against partial birth abortion lasted 38 hours over at least five days - again, with some overnight breaks.
Filibusters serve several different purposes - and they don't all apply at the same time, although more than one purpose can be in play during the same talkfest.
The most obvious reason is an attempt to kill a bill by a group that doesn't have enough votes to defeat it.
The people who don't like a proposal gather their forces and talk ... and talk ... and talk ... and talk in an effort to get the sponsor to stop the debate by placing the bill on the "informal" calendar.
That means the bill isn't dead - the sponsor could bring it back up at some point - but unless changes are made to the proposal, it likely would meet the same talkfest fate.
A filibuster also can be used to wrest changes in a bill.
That's what happened three weeks ago - although participants said there were about seven hours during the 13 when no negotiations were going on.
The other "main" purpose of a filibuster is to run the clock out against other bills further down the calendar.
That is not much of a factor this early in a legislative session because the session doesn't end until May.
However, at the end of April and the first two weeks in May - when the Constitution has a specific deadline for things to end (at 6 p.m. on the second Friday after the first Monday in May) - time is precious, and spending that time blocking a bill rather than taking votes on bills can become a major issue.
Filibusters can be ended in three main ways:
• The bill sponsor can stop debate by "laying the bill over" on the calendar.
• The people trying to block the bill can let it come to a vote.
• Or the supporters can move the "previous question," which halts all debate and forces a vote on the pending motion. The PQ is used routinely in the House on a motion from the floor leader.
However, in the Senate - where the tradition is that every senator has an equal opportunity to debate a bill or talk against it - the rules require a letter to be delivered to the secretary of the Senate, signed by at least five senators - and only then can a PQ motion be made from the floor.
And, if there are amendments that have been offered to the base bill, then each PQ step requires two "forced" votes - one to agree to calling the previous question and one to vote on the pending motion.
Readers rarely see stories detailing what was said during a filibuster - because it usually isn't that germane to the bill being filibustered.
In addition to things like this week's reading of the lists of opponents, past filibusters have included memories of baseball games played or watched, lawmakers' vacations and readings from books (including phone books).
When now-U.S. Rep. Sam Graves was still in the state Senate - and unhappy with an education bill he thought hurt his rural Northwest Missouri school districts - he led a filibuster that included reading the names of all the high school graduates in his district that year.
Why does a reporter stay through a filibuster?
Historically, at least one member of the Capitol Press Corps has stayed to watch a filibuster to its end - because reporters are outside observers and can report on whether there were unusual actions or comments made during the talkfest.
Without news stories, historians will have trouble telling when a filibuster occurred - because the Senate Journals don't contain that information and never list the amount of time any debate takes.