Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) has held the Senate floor since 7pm ET Monday, promising to talk “as long as I am physically able.”
Why it matters: Booker has been talking for around 16 hours, with pauses for questions from fellow Democrats — and he doesn’t seem to be slowing down. But he has around 8 hours to go if he wants to break the record for the longest Senate speech.
- In a social media video posted before he took the floor, the former presidential candidate said he had heard calls from across the nation for lawmakers to “do more” to “recognize the urgency, the crisis of the moment.”
- Booker’s marathon speech is technically not a filibuster, which is “designed to prolong debate and delay or prevent a vote on a bill, resolution, amendment, or other debatable question.”
- However, if he’s still talking past noon, he could disrupt official business, the New York Times noted.
Sen. Strom Thurmond is mobbed by reporters after ending his 24-hour, 18-minutes talkathon against a Civil Rights bill. Photo: Bettmann via Getty Images
The record for the longest individual speech belongs to the late South Carolina Sen. Strom Thurmond — a Democrat at the time who later joined the Republicans. Thurmond spoke for 24 hours and 18 minutes in protest of the Civil Rights Act of 1957.
- Sen. Wayne Morse of Oregon previously held the record with a 1953 filibuster that lasted 22 hours and 26 minutes.
Flashback: Thurmond, according a 2013 Vanity Fair review of reporting from the time, took steam baths every day to dehydrate himself in an attempt to hinder nature’s call so he wouldn’t have to leave the Senate chamber to use the bathroom.
- And Time Magazine wrote shortly after his filibuster, NPR noted, that he temporarily yielded to a fellow lawmaker for a Congressional Record insertion to use the bathroom.
- The record for the longest multi-speaker filibuster was 60 days, when a faction of Southern lawmakers in 1964 attempted to block the Civil Rights Act.
Booker, without formally relinquishing the floor, has accepted questions from other Democrats, including Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) and Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.).
Alfonse D’Amato halts the Senate twice
Former Sen. Alfonse D’Amato (R-N.Y.) made history with two marathon filibusters: He spoke for over 23 hours in 1986 and over 15 hours in 1992.
- D’Amato, who lost his Senate seat in 1998 to Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), filibustered for 23 hours and 30 minutes over an amendment to a bill that would nix financing for a jet trainer aircraft.
- In 1992, he launched a “gentleman’s filibuster” over plans to move typewriter factory jobs to Mexico.
Ted Cruz and Chris Murphy’s modern marathons
Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) looks on as Senator Chris Murphy (D-Conn.)) speaks to reporters after waging an almost 15-hour filibuster on the Senate floor on June 15, 2016. Photo: Pete Marovich/Getty Images
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Murphy each hosted notable marathon speeches.
And Murphy took to the floor for some 15 hours in 2016 to push for votes on gun control legislation.
- Booker said on Tuesday that Murphy had been with him throughout his whole speech, calling it a “full circle” moment, as he was his colleague’s “aide-de-camp” during the 2016 filibuster.
- “His debt is paid, but I got fuel in the tank,” Booker said.
Go deeper: The filibuster’s evolution
