Using NewsHour Extra Feature Stories

Overview: NewsHour Extra features stories can help students identify and interpret key issues in current events. This activity anticipates one class period, but the follow-up essay might be assigned as homework, or in another period.

Warm Up: Use initiating questions to introduce the topic and find out how much your students know.

Main Activity: Have students read NewsHour Extra's feature story and answer the questions on the reading comprehension handout.

Discussion: Use discussion questions to encourage students to think about how the issues outlined in the story affect their lives and express and debate different opinions.

Follow-up: Students can write an 500-word editorial on the topic expressing their views and send it to NewsHour Extra [extra@newshour.org] for possible publication.

Evaluation: Students are graded on their answers to reading comprehension questions and/or their editorial.

Story: Senators Reach Deal on Judicial Filibusters: 05/24/05
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/extra/features/jan-june05/filibuster_5-24.html

Initiating Questions:

1. Have you ever heard the term 'filibuster'? What does it mean and when do you think it is used?

2. How are federal judges appointed?

3. What kinds of positions should federal judges have on controversial issues like gay rights and abortion?

4. Do you think it's difficult for Democrat and Republican senators to work together when their views are very different?

Reading Comprehension Questions: (click here for printout)

1. What is a filibuster and how can it be ended?

During President Bush's first term, Democrats used the filibuster technique -- long speeches that prevent a vote -- to block controversial judges President Bush nominated to be on important federal courts.

Currently, it takes 60 out of 100 senators to end a filibuster: Republicans have 55 Senate seats -- a majority, but not the "supermajority" necessary to end a filibuster.

2. When have filibusters been used in the past?

Filibusters have been used throughout the Senate's history. Southern senators, for example, used a 57-day filibuster to stall passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which ended racial segregation in public facilities and the workplace.

3. Why did Democrats oppose President Bush's nominees?

Democrats objected to Owen and Brown because of what they call rigid ideological positions on issues such as gay rights, abortion and affirmative action.

4. What were Democrats threatening to do if Senator Frist used the "nuclear option"?

Had the rules been changed, Democrats had threatened to disrupt Senate operations, effectively shutting down the body, by insisting all lengthy bills be read aloud and all votes be taken. Usually these steps are skipped by "unanimous consent."

Discussion Questions (more research might be needed):

1. Research some of President Bush's judge nominations the Democrats have blocked. Do you agree that the judges are controversial? Would you vote to approve them?

2. Republicans called the Democrats' use of the filibuster unconstitutional because nominees deserve a yes-or-no vote. Democrats called the "nuclear option" unconstitutional because it silences the voice of the minority by taking away the tools they have to make their opinions heard. Do you think the filibuster or the "nuclear option" is unconstitutional? Why? Defend your answer.

Send your answers, in essay form, to extra@newshour.org for possible publication!