As April got underway, Sen. Cory Booker did something no senator had ever done before: The New Jersey Democrat stood on the chamber’s floor for roughly 25 consecutive hours and made a spirited case against Donald Trump’s far-right agenda.
The previous record was set in 1957, when then-Sen. Strom Thurmond of South Carolina held the floor for over 24 hours to condemn the Civil Rights Act of 1957. But on April 1, Booker relegated the segregationist to second place in the history books.
Three months later, as July gets underway, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries didn’t manage to speak for 25 hours, but the New York Democrat, like Booker, broke his own institution’s record. He concluded his speech shortly before 1:30 p.m. ET on Thursday, after speaking for more than eight hours and 44 minutes, echoing famous remarks from two civil rights icons: the late Rep. John Lewis and Martin Luther King Jr.
“Dr. King said that if you can’t fly, run,” Jeffries said. “If you can’t run, walk. If you can’t walk, crawl. But at all times, press on … No matter what the outcome is on this singular day, we’re going to press on. … We’re going to press on until victory is won.”
During congressional debates, the vast majority of members are only allowed to deliver brief, minute-long remarks. But three members — the House speaker, majority leader and minority leader — can exploit what are known as “magic minutes,” allowing them to speak as long as they wish.
In 2018, for example, Democratic Rep. Nancy Pelosi of California, the House minority leader at the time, stood on the House floor for over eight hours, seeking a vote on protections for Dreamers. It broke the institution’s record for the longest speech ever delivered on the House floor.
Three years later, then-Republican Rep. Kevin McCarthy of California broke Pelosi’s record, holding the floor to condemn the Democrats’ Build Back Better legislation.
Now, it’s Jeffries, who made a devastating case against the inaptly named One Big Beautiful Bill Act, who holds the top slot.
Jeffries: "As a result of the all-out Republican assault on healthcare, people will die. Tens of thousands, perhaps year after year, as a result of the Republican assault on the healthcare of the American people. I'm sad. I never thought that I'd be on the House floor saying this is a crime scene" The New York Democrat began his remarks just before 5 a.m. ET, though if he intended to break the House record, Jeffries and his office kept this plan to themselves. As NBC News noted, the House minority leader used the opportunity to reference a series of binders as he read notes from Americans who would be harmed by Medicaid and SNAP benefit cuts. “What is contemplated in this one big, ugly bill is wrong. It’s dangerous, and it’s cruel, and cruelty should not be either the objective or the outcome of legislation that we consider here in the United States House of Representatives,” Jeffries argued. The Democratic leader might not have changed any GOP minds, but his record-breaking presentation brought some much-needed attention to the case against the most regressive legislative package in at least a generation.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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