The Senate experienced its first filibuster of the session on Wednesday. After hours of debate, the chamber finally passed a bill that would make it easier for people to take up teaching as a second profession.

Sen. Joan Bray, D-University City, had been trying to talk the bill to death for hours Wednesday afternoon before a deal was struck at about 8:30 p.m. She helped craft a substitute bill that can be taken up by House members.

Of course, filibustering is the upper chamber’s honored tradition of letting one senator become a “one-person majority” if he or she feels especially strongly about a bill.

For most of the filibuster, Bray was speaking to a nearly empty chamber. At various points, she used a delay tactic that brought a majority of senators momentarily back from their offices.

As with any filibuster, senators frequently got off-topic. Turns out there is an American Idol candidate from Joplin – Asia’h Epperson – and Sen. Jason Crowell’s grandmother used to send birthday cards and letters back to him with red proofreading marks.

“This is kind of one of the weirdest things I’ve ever seen,” said Senate Majority Leader Charlie Shields, R-St. Joseph, referring to Bray’s compromise. Senators had already voted to stop amending the bill; they can only recommend the compromise provisions to their counterparts in the House.

Bray had been out of the country during initial debate on the bill last week. She held up the bill because she felt it lowers the quality of the state’s teachers.

“It’s degrading to the teaching profession,” she said. “We give up as a state, our rights to determine the quality of our teachers in the system.”

The bill’s sponsor, Sen. Luann Ridgeway, R-Smithville, said her proposal helps solve a statewide teacher shortage – including a need for 400 just in St. Louis.

Prospective teachers would have to be certified by the Washington, D.C.-based American Board for Certification of Teacher Excellence. Ridgeway said the program merely makes it easier for people to switch professions to teaching and is not intended as a substitute for the current teaching certification program.

The Senate passed the bill by a vote of 25-5.