For 12 hours and 52 minutes, Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., held the Senate floor, with occasional help from a handful of Republican and Democratic colleagues, delaying the nomination of John Brennan to head the Central Intelligence Agency. Paul admitted early on that he didn’t have the votes to derail the nomination. But his decision to exercise a senator’s right to speak without time limit forced the Senate, and the press covering it, to focus on a controversial issue.
Paul’s filibuster was motivated by Attorney General Eric Holder’s controversial claim that the president has the authority to kill American citizens on American soil without due process of law. It also showed Washington what a real filibuster looks like.
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