Booker's Marathon Speech

Victor Feldman at Roll Call:

New Jersey Democrat Cory Booker on Tuesday evening broke the record for the longest floor speech in the Senate’s history with a marathon speech taking aim at the Trump administration’s policies and efforts to downsize the federal government.

Booker continued speaking after surpassing the 24-hour-and-18 minute record set in 1957 by South Carolina Democrat Strom Thurmond. Booker yielded the floor after holding it for 25 hours and four minutes, according to the Senate Periodical Gallery.

The senior senator for New Jersey acknowledged the moment as Democrats on the floor cheered.

“The man who tried to stop the rights upon which I stand … I’m not here though because of his speech, I’m here despite his speech,” Booker said of Thurmond, the Dixiecrat-turned-Republican and foe of the Civil Rights Act.

Channeling the spirit of the late Georgia Democratic House member and civil rights activist John Lewis, Booker had held the Senate floor since Monday night in what he called an effort to stir up “good trouble.”

“I rise with the intention of disrupting the normal business of the United States Senate for as long as I am physically able,” Booker said in his familiar booming voice Monday evening. “I rise tonight because I believe sincerely that our nation is in crisis.”

 

Injunction Junction

Many posts have discussed the power of the courts.

Miles's Law: where you stand depends on where you sit.

Sophia Cai at Politico:

Trump and his allies have in recent weeks called for the impeachment of at least five federal judges who have issued injunctions against administration actions, including DOGE moves to gut the federal government. But in past years, especially under JOE BIDEN’s administration, those same Trump allies celebrated judicial injunctions.

Two years ago, Trump praised a federal judge’s ruling which blocked the Biden administration from communicating with social media companies. “Just last week in a historic ruling, a brilliant federal judge ordered the Biden administration to cease and desist from their illegal and unconstitutional censorship and collusion with social media,” he said at a Turning Point Action summit.

In December, Trump applauded when a federal judge blocked the Biden administration from disposing of materials used for Trump’s promised Southern border wall before his inauguration. And in 2021, STEPHEN MILLER’s America First Legal Foundation asked for injunctions against the Biden administration, including one on the federal employee Covid-19 vaccine mandate.

In 2016, Josh Gerstein reported at Politico:

Conservative states are succeeding in getting friendly federal judges to issue broad—often nationwide—injunctions reining in federal government actions, thwarting key parts of President Barack Obama’s agenda and imperiling some aspects of Hillary Clinton’s platform.

The tactic—amplified by the 4-4 deadlock in the Supreme Court—has already frozen Obama’s immigration policy, is limiting his efforts to protect transgender rights and could hamstring Clinton’s planned executive actions on immigration, labor and environmental issues if she wins the White House.

The shorthanded Supreme Court is expected to start adding new cases to its docket as soon as Thursday, with the new term set to open Monday. But many legal experts say that if the high court remains split down the middle on key issues, the more important action will be in the lower courts, where the red-state-led onslaught is playing out..

In its waning days, the Obama administration is continuing to push back against the conservative legal assault, with the Justice Department repeatedly opposing nationwide injunctions and pressing judges to rein in their rulings.

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Nonetheless, some liberal legal activists seem reluctant to deplore the conservative states’ tactics. The reason: civil rights and immigrants’ advocates have long visited the courtrooms of federal judges to seek sweeping rulings looking to alter federal policy across the country.

“A single case involving a single judge can issue an injunction against nationwide laws or policies and they have always done that. That’s the way our legal system works,” said Nina Perales of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund. “It’s almost as if conservatives figured this out after progressives did....It’s really not new.”

How Many Federal Crimes?

In our chapter on bureaucracy, we quote James Madison's warning about "laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood."

Sarah Anderson at R Street:

How many federal crimes exist? It seems like a straightforward question, but even the Congressional Research Service ultimately gave up when they tried to answer it. Attempted studies estimate there are nearly 5,000 federal crimes in statute (passed by Congress) and likely between 300,000 and 400,000 federal crimes in the regulatory code, promulgated by federal agency rules and published in the Federal Register. Both types hold the full weight of the law to enforce and prosecute.

Considering that our Constitution outlines only three crimes—treason, piracy, and counterfeiting—and the first federal criminal law, the Crimes Act of 1790, outlined a whopping 23 separate crimes, it is safe to say we have deviated dramatically from the system our founding fathers envisioned.

In fact, many argue that the extreme level of criminalization found in our federal code turns average Americans into criminals, unbeknownst to them, presenting a significant threat to liberty and prosperity. To make matters worse, most of these crimes are not even remotely what most Americans would consider dangerous offenses. Renowned author of “How to Become a Federal Criminal,” Mike Chase, humorously but sadly reveals the nature of many of these crimes on the social platform X at @CrimeADay, including such things as selling “Swiss cheese” without holes, offering to buy swan feathers to make a woman’s hat, or riding a manatee.

Long Term Deficit and Debt

 Many posts have discussed federal deficits and the federal debt.

CBO, The Long-Term Budget Outlook: 2025 to 2055.

Debt

In CBO’s projections, federal debt held by the public, measured as a percentage of gross domestic product (GDP), increases in every year of the 2025–2055 period. By 2029, that debt climbs to 107 percent of GDP, exceeding the historical peak it reached immediately after World War II. In 2055, it reaches 156 percent of GDP and remains on track to increase thereafter. Such large and growing debt would slow economic growth, push up interest payments to foreign holders of U.S. debt, and pose significant risks to the fiscal and economic outlook; it could also cause lawmakers to feel constrained in their policy choices.

Deficits

The total federal budget deficit remains large by historical standards over the next 30 years, averaging 6.3 percent of GDP—more than one and a half times its average over the past 50 years—and reaching 7.3 percent of GDP in 2055. Those amounts are the result of rising interest costs and sustained primary deficits, which exclude net outlays for interest. Primary deficits average 2.0 percent of GDP over the 30-year period; over the past 50 years, they averaged 1.7 percent of GDP.

Outlays and Revenues

Federal outlays rise over the next 30 years, reaching 26.6 percent of GDP in 2055. They have exceeded that level only twice: during World War II and during the coronavirus pandemic. Growth in net interest costs; spending for federal health care programs, particularly Medicare; and spending for Social Security, especially over the next decade, drive that increase. Measured as a percentage of GDP, revenues increase over the next few years, largely because of the scheduled expiration of certain provisions of the 2017 tax act. Revenues generally continue to rise thereafter, reaching 19.3 percent of GDP in 2055, mainly because growth in real income (that is, income adjusted to remove the effects of changes in prices) boosts receipts from individual income taxes.

 

Rendering Innocent People

 The Trump administration is snatching people without due process.

Mother Jones reporter Noah Lanard spoke with families of those detained in a Salvadorian prison. In one case, the Trump administration accused their loved one of having a gang tattoo. The family says it’s a tattoo for autism awareness.

The Rights of Noncitizens

Many posts have discussed immigration.

María Luisa Paúl at WP:

Legal scholars broadly agree that the U.S. Constitution protects all people within the country’s borders, not just citizens. That includes rights to free speech, freedom of religion and peaceful assembly under the First Amendment, as well as the right to due process.

In a 1953 decision, the Supreme Court maintained that “once an alien lawfully enters and resides in this country he becomes invested with the rights guaranteed by the Constitution to all people within our borders.” Over the following decades, the court extended those constitutional protections to any noncitizen within the country — including those who entered illegally.

But while noncitizens are generally protected from criminal or civil penalties for expressing political views, those same protections don’t always apply in the immigration context, where the government has broad discretion to detain or deport. The Supreme Court has sent mixed messages in its decisions.

“To be frank, it’s really a murky area,” said Tyler Coward, lead counsel for government affairs at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE). “The Supreme Court has upheld, back during the Red Scare era, deportations of noncitizens for their involvement with Communist Party politics. But there are other Supreme Court cases where they do uphold noncitizens’ free speech rights.”
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Noncitizens do not have the same legal protections in immigration court as citizens do in criminal court, Asad L. Asad, a sociology professor at Stanford University, wrote in 2019. For instance, they can be detained without a warrant and have no guaranteed right to a government-appointed attorney. The immigration judges overseeing their cases, Asad added, are “administrative judges under the executive — not judicial — branch of government and subject to replacement should they make decisions unaligned with the goals of the U.S. Attorney General.”

Still, noncitizens have the right to contact a lawyer, to remain silent, to refuse to consent to a search, to request bond and to appeal deportation orders, according to Espíritu. Just like American citizens, they also have a right to due process. Legal defense organizations are mobilizing to assist students and residents caught in the current sweep.

Jim Crow Redux

Many posts have dealt with racial issues.

Lloyd Green at The Guardian:

Gen Robert E Lee is long dead, but the spirit of the Confederacy appears alive and well. Federal contractors will no longer be explicitly barred from racially segregating their restaurants, waiting rooms and water fountains, according to the Trump administration. A memorandum dated 15 February 2025, issued by the General Services Administration, the procurement arm of the federal government, explicitly dropped those strictures.

“Any open solicitations that contain any of the provisions or clauses listed above should be amended to remove the provisions and clauses,” the memo read. Forget about simply putting an end to race-based affirmative action and DEI. Team Trump appears determined to turn the clock back to the 1950s, if not earlier than that. The ghost of Jim Crow smiles.