By Gwyn Williams
Staff Writer
On March 31, 2025, Cory Booker began what would become a record-breaking speech on the Senate floor. He spoke for a total of 25 hours and five minutes. Booker surpassed the previous record held by Strom Thurmond of South Carolina, which totaled over 24 hours. Booker, the Democratic senator from New Jersey, used 1,164 pages of prepared material, and more than 200 stories from across the nation. A filibuster is a parliamentary procedure where one or a group of members of the Senate can speak for a prolonged period of time. It is used to delay, or in some cases prevent, the passing of a legislative bill.
“[It’s] a rule of the Senate,” said Northwood history teacher Craig Carlson, “It’s supposed to be a place where each senator has the right to speak as long as they can, and the other senators afford them that respect and listen during that time. The filibuster for the last 10, 15 years has been especially hotly debated… [In the 1950’s] the filibuster’s primary use in the United States Senate had been to prevent and stall civil rights legislation.”
Booker’s speech was mostly in retaliation to the intense immigration policies put out by President Trump in his first hundred days.
“Booker’s filibuster is at the beginning point of a possible organized resistance to President Trump’s agenda, whereas Thurmond’s [filibuster] was right in the middle and part and parcel of an overall resistance to not the president, but to the supreme court,” Carlson said, “Strom Thurmond[s] filibuster was a part of a large-scale southern congressional resistance to the supreme court decision on segregation. [Although] the supreme court decision enjoyed national support, it did not enjoy support from the white power structure.”
The goal of Booker’s filibuster was to prolong any more lawmakings on the issue of immigration and share stories from citizens to encourage awareness. It was in response to the significant rejection of the Trump Administration during his first hundred days in office.
