For 25 hours and five minutes, New Jersey Democratic Sen. Cory Booker stood on the Senate floor, delivering a speech that set a new record for the longest filibuster. Underneath the surface of his impeccable stamina and ability to yap endlessly, there’s a much bigger meaning behind what this record-breaking moment meant.
Did anyone tell you what a filibuster is before Booker’s big moment? Let us refresh you: it’s pretty much a super long speech to stall time, keeping legislators from being able to decide on a bill or any other legislative action.
The last person to filibuster the hell out of the Senate floor was mega-racist Sen. Strom Thurmond from South Carolina. About 68 years ago, the senator filibustered for 24 hours and 18 minutes in opposition to the 1957 Civil Rights Act, standing firmly on the belief segregation should remain in America, per NPR.
Booker, the first Black person to represent New Jersey in the Senate, also used the Senate floor to stall but in a starkly different vein. While Thurmond’s stance was footed in sheer racism against policies that would help this country live up to its declarations of unity and democracy, Booker protested the wrath of unethical policies coming from President Donald Trump’s White House which have posed serious threats to our democracy.
“I was very aware of Strom Thurmond’s record. I’ve always felt it was a strange shadow to hang over this institution ... It always seemed wrong,” Booker said after the speech, via USA TODAY.
Booker said in preparation of the lengthy speech, he didn’t eat or hydrate himself for days prior, per USA TODAY. With outstanding poise and a chilling sense of urgency, he delivered remarks criticizing Trump’s policies on Social Security, the Department of Education and immigration. He described the country to be in a state of “crisis,” citing the seemingly unsupervised, Elon Musk-controlled Department of Government Efficiency.
Booker also repeatedly referenced the late civil rights leader Rep. John Lewis, labeling his filibuster as “good trouble” - all in an effort to reintroduce Democratic power in the current GOP-controlled Congress.
“I’ve been hearing from people all over my state and indeed all over the nation calling upon folks in Congress to do more, to do things that recognize the urgency, the crisis of the moment. And so we all have a responsibility, I believe, to do something different, to cause, as John Lewis said, ‘good trouble,’ and that includes me,” said Booker in a social media video moments before making history.