A Democratic senator ended a nearly 15-hour-long filibuster on the Senate floor early Thursday, part of an effort to force a vote on gun control legislation following Sunday’s terror attack in Orlando.
(FOX)- Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., yielded the floor at 2:11 a.m., 14 hours and 50 minutes after he began speaking. Murphy kept up his filibuster to a mostly empty chamber, save for 38 Democratic senators who joined him and made their own speeches throughout the day. Two Republican senators, Ben Sasse of Nebraska and Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania, also made remarks.
Democrats were seeking a vote on two amendments to an underlying spending bill. One, proposed by Murphy, would expand background checks. The other, proposed by Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., would let the government bar sales of guns and explosives to people it suspects of being terrorists.
Republicans argue that Feinstein’s bill denies due process to people who may be on the terror list erroneously and are trying to exercise their constitutional right to gun ownership.
Near the end of the filibuster, Murphy said that Senate leaders had promised “a path forward” for floor votes on the legislation, but did not elaborate further.
As he began to speak Wednesday morning, Murphy said he would remain on the Senate floor “until we get some signal, some sign that we can come together,” and evoked the Newtown school shooting in his state in 2012.
“For those of us that represent Connecticut, the failure of this body to do anything, anything at all in the face of that continued slaughter isn’t just painful to us, it’s unconscionable,” Murphy said.