Cory Booker has been talking in the senate for over 20 hours now
Heโs not filibustering. Heโs protesting the current administration.
For those of you from outside the US or those of you who didnโt pay attention in government class, in the US senate thereโs really no limit to the amount of time a senator can speak. So sometimes if they donโt want a bill to pass they just. Donโt stop talking. To hopefully get past the deadline to vote on a bill. This is called filibustering.
Senator Cory Booker isnโt doing that. Heโs disrupting โthe normal business of the United States Senate for as long as I am physically ableโ. Just in protest. This doesnโt usually happen.
Heโs less than 20 minutes away from breaking the record of the longest speech given on the senate floor
Cory Booker has officially broken Strom Thurmondโs record for longest speech on the senate floor and heโs still going
For those of you wondering what heโs 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. Heโs also been telling personal anecdotes about meeting important civil rights leaders and other democratic senators have been pausing him for โquestionsโ 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 heโs been missing while heโs been talking.
He has yielded the floor at 25 hrs and 4 mins. His eyes are so wide they look like theyโre going to bug out of his skull so I donโt 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.