Cory Booker has been talking in the senate for over 20 hours now
He’s not filibustering. He’s protesting the current administration.
For those of you from outside the US or those of you who didn’t pay attention in government class, in the US senate there’s really no limit to the amount of time a senator can speak. So sometimes if they don’t want a bill to pass they just. Don’t stop talking. To hopefully get past the deadline to vote on a bill. This is called filibustering.
Senator Cory Booker isn’t doing that. He’s disrupting “the normal business of the United States Senate for as long as I am physically able”. Just in protest. This doesn’t usually happen.
He’s less than 20 minutes away from breaking the record of the longest speech given on the senate floor
Cory Booker has officially broken Strom Thurmond’s record for longest speech on the senate floor and he’s still going
For those of you wondering what he’s been talking about this whole time, his staff wrote down a bunch of stuff for him to read like stories from people across the political spectrum opposed to what the administration is doing. He’s also been telling personal anecdotes about meeting important civil rights leaders and other democratic senators have been pausing him for “questions” but the questions have been as long as a small speech and have both served the purpose of giving him a second to sit down and updating him on the news that he’s been missing while he’s been talking.
He has yielded the floor at 25 hrs and 4 mins. His eyes are so wide they look like they’re going to bug out of his skull so I don’t blame him for stopping. He said to go out and get in some good trouble.
Addition for those unaware: Cory Booker is black. Strom Thurmond set the previous record about 70 years ago in protest of civil rights. Booker spent much of the time I was watching talking about the importance of working together for the people and the idea that it's not "left versus right but right versus wrong."
The new record speech is on the right side of history.
