January 26, 2021 Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has backed off his demands to protect the 60-vote rule, but the issue could come back up later. With Democrats now holding the Senate majority, talk of eliminating the filibuster has ramped up. So what is a filibuster and why is the issue coming up now? "A filibuster is really extended debate, extended amending activity, whatever it takes to block the majority from going to a vote on whatever it is they're pursuing," said Sarah Binder, a senior fellow for governance studies at the Brookings Institution and a professor of political science at George Washington University.