Democratic Sen. Jeff Merkley of Oregon is staging a marathon speech to protest what he calls President Donald Trump’s “tightening authoritarian grip on the country” amid the government shutdown.

Sen. Cory Booker has expanded upon his historic Senate floor speech from last month into an upcoming book.

New Jersey Democratic Sen. Cory Booker held the Senate floor with a marathon speech that lasted 25 hours and 5 minutes, setting the record for the longest continuous Senate floor speech in the chamber’s history.

New Jersey Democratic Sen. Cory Booker has held the Senate floor with a marathon speech that lasted more than 25 hours.

Minority Republicans have used a Senate filibuster to derail Democrats’ effort to launch a bipartisan probe of the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.

Minority Republicans have used a Senate filibuster to derail Democrats’ effort to launch a bipartisan probe of the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.

Senate Republicans are poised to use a filibuster to derail Democrats’ effort to launch a bipartisan probe of the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.

Senator Strom Thurmond (D-S.C.) is mobbed by reporters as he steps from the Senate Chamber after ending his 24-hour, 18-minutes talkathon against the Civil Rights Bill. The term “filibuster” has been in the news the past few days, with Democrats and Republicans debating in the Senate whether they should still exist. With that in mind, it got us thinking: What are the longest filibusters in Senate history? Thurmond quickly returned to the floor, but concerned that nature would call again, his staff came up with an idea. They set up a bucket in the nearby cloakroom, where Thurmond could relieve himself while keeping a foot on the senate floor, according to NPR.

2003: Strom Thurmond, the third longest-serving senator in U.S. history, dies in Edgefield, South Carolina, at age 100. Thurmond left office in January 2003 after 48 years in the U.S. Senate as the oldest-serving and longest-serving senator in U.S. history, but was later surpassed in length of service by Robert Byrd and Daniel Inouye. He ran for president in 1948 as the States Rights Democratic Party (Dixiecrat) candidate and also served as the governor of South Carolina between 1947 and 1951. As a senator he was known for his opposition to federal civil rights legislation, including the Civil Rights Act of 1957, for which he conducted the longest filibuster ever by a lone senator at 24 hours and 18 minutes. Hide Caption