(FORTUNE Magazine) – Late on the night of June 12, 1935, Louisiana Senator Huey Long noticed that several of his colleagues were snoozing at their desks. The populist firebrand suggested to Vice President John Nance Garner, who was presiding, that every Senator should be forced to listen to him as he read and interpreted the U.S. Constitution. Garner replied dryly, "That would be unusual cruelty under the Bill of Rights." So Long continued his one-man blockade of a piece of Roosevelt's New Deal.

That was a vintage filibuster from the days when Senators in the minority needed cast-iron bladders to stop legislation they despised. Long talked for 15 hours, 30 minutes, before heeding the call of nature. After he exhausted the Constitution, he read his favorite recipes for fried oysters and pot-likkers.

Most people imagine that filibusters are like the one in the movie classic Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, in which Jimmy Stewart rails all night against injustice, then faints from fatigue. But that's Hollywood. In the Capitol today, all that Senators have to do is tell a leadership aide that they object to a bill, and--presto!--the measure's halted. (The bill is said to have a "hold" on it.) It's been years since Senators slept on cots as their filibustering colleagues read phone books on the Senate floor.

That's a shame, and not just because it makes Washington less entertaining--though it certainly does. Before so-called tough-guy filibusters disappeared, old bulls of the Senate like Richard Russell and Everett Dirksen could be seen in the wee hours padding around the chamber in their bathrobes and slippers. Lawmakers recited Shakespeare and read from the Bible. As part of the longest personal filibuster ever--24 hours, 18 minutes, during debate on the Civil Rights Act of 1957--Strom Thurmond of South Carolina read the election laws of all 48 states.

But there's a more serious reason for nostalgia. Since no one has to talk a bill to death anymore, filibustering now happens all the time on even trivial matters, adding to Senate paralysis. "Pervasive filibustering contributes to the notion that Washington is a do-nothing place," says Sarah Binder of the Brookings Institution.

What's to blame for this wimpy turn of events? As usual, the law of unintended consequences. In the 1970s, Senate Majority Leader Mike Mansfield decided that filibusters were eating up too much time. He instituted a two-track system in which Senators acknowledged that filibusters were going on but proceeded with other business anyway. Such "powder-puff filibustering" cut down on floor debates, but it drastically increased the number of bills bollixed up. In the entire 19th century there were only 23 filibusters. Between 1970 and 1994 there were 191. Dozens happen every year, though we don't hear of them, on matters as marginal as factory closings.

Filibusters--the word is derived from filibustero, Spanish for "pirate"--were intended to be a last-ditch method for Senators who didn't have majority support to impede measures they cared passionately about. They were used by conservatives to resist civil rights legislation and by liberals to hold off cuts in the capital gains tax. But filibusters have become routine in lesser matters too, like ambassadorial nominations and housing provisions. Thus, the Senate ends up doing a great deal of not very much.

That's why it's time to make Senators stand up for their principles, literally, and force a higher standard for obstructionism. If Senators object to a bill, they should prove their resolve with a bladder-defying commitment. The result would be more focus on the great issues of the day, a less balky Senate, and fewer filibusters. Senator Long mightn't have been right about many things, but he did know the right way to filibuster.