1917 to 1970, the Senate took forty-nine votes to break filibusters. That’s an average of slightly less than one each year. From 2013 to 2014, it had to take 218. That might’ve been a high mark of Senate obstruction, but there was no subsequent retreat to the rare filibusters of yesteryear: the 2015–2016 Senate session saw 123 cloture votes, and the 2017–2018 session hosted 168.
