Nancy Pelosi ends House filibuster after more than eight hours

The speech lasted eight hours and seven minutes, beginning at 10:04 a.m. and ending at 6:11 p.m.

The House was set to start debating the Mortgage Choice Act, but Pelosi, D-Calif., took the floor shortly after 10 a.m., and said she wanted to talk at length about immigration.

Pelosi, 77, stood in stilettos and did not leave the podium over the duration of the speech. She read testimonies of Dreamers and warned that a “large number” of House Democrats are prepared to vote against a short-term spending bill without a guarantee from House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., that there would be a vote on immigration.

The Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which protects young illegal immigrants brought to the U.S. as children, is set to expire on March 5.

At the conclusion of her speech, Pelosi drew applause from Democrats in the room, to which the Democratic leader said: “I accept your applause on behalf of” the Dreamers.

She also noted the progress Senate leaders made Wednesday with a bipartisan, long-term spending deal, and expressed hope that the House would provide a fair opportunity to the minority party.

“The Republican leader, [Sen.] Mitch Mcconnell has gone forward with the budget proposal with the promise that he will give that opportunity to the floor of the Senate,” Pelosi said. The Senate will work its will … and we’ll work our will here and see what we produce, but it must be bipartisan, transparent and unifying.”

She ended her remarks complimenting the “inspiration” provided by Dreamers, whom she said “make America more American.”

While not actually a filibuster, which is an action lawmakers take in the Senate, Pelosi, as a party leader, reserves the right to talk at length on the floor. Both she and House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., often request one minute to speak, but go on for several minutes.

The speech was the longest on the House floor in at least 100 years and may have set a record, the House of Representatives Historian’s Office said in the late afternoon.

“It appears that Leader Pelosi today set the record for the longest-continuous speech in the House, going back at least to 1909 when Champ Clark of Missouri held the floor for five hours and 15 minutes,” the announcement from the historian’s office reads. Clark’s speech was the only speech of a comparable length that the historian’s office could find.

By comparison, the longest speech in the Senate goes to former Sen. Strom Thurmond, a Democrat at the time, who held the floor for 24 hours and 18 minutes in 1957 to speak against the Civil Rights Act of 1957.

Republicans pushed back against Pelosi’s move by noting that they are already deeply involved in negotiations with Democrats to find a way forward on immigration, but one that fits in with what President Trump wants.

“Speaker Ryan has already repeatedly stated we intend to do a DACA and immigration reform bill – one that the president supports,” said Ryan spokeswoman AshLee Strong.

While Congress has yet to agree to a solution to protect DACA recipients, the White House last month unveiled a proposal that would provide a path to citizenship to 1.8 million people brought illegally into the U.S. as children in exchange for cutting family-based immigration, ending the diversity visa lottery system and enhancing border security.

Editor’s note: The story has been updated to correct former Sen. Strom Thurmond’s party affiliation at the time of his 24-hour Senate speech. He was a Democrat at the time, not a Republican.