Hakeem Jeffries Called Filibuster a Relic of ‘Jim Crow,’ Now Using Hours-Long Speech to Delay Big Beautiful Bill

Hakeem Jeffries has long portrayed the Senate filibuster as an obstacle to progress and repeatedly called for its elimination, but now he is invoking his own version of procedural delay by using the House’s ‘magic minute’ to stall a final vote on the One Big Beautiful Bill.

In 2013, Jeffries posted:

“The time for Senate #FilibusterReform is now.”

By 2021, his rhetoric had intensified. In May, he declared:

“The filibuster is a racially tinged artifact of the Jim Crow era. We cannot let it stand in the way of progress.”

In June, he added:

“Now might be a good time to remind America that the filibuster does not appear anywhere in the Constitution.”

By October:

“The cult has no interest in governing. Abolish the filibuster. So we can handle the people’s business.”

In December:

“The filibuster is a Jim Crow era relic that has been used to stop progress for decades. Enough.”

In January 2022, Jeffries escalated again:

“Detonate the filibuster so we can crush the voter suppression epidemic.”

Jeffries cannot use the Senate filibuster in the House but he is now stalling Republican priorities by exploiting the customary “magic minute,” a House concept that allows party leaders to speak for unlimited time on the floor.

Early Wednesday morning, during a disjointed speech still going after more than six hours, Jeffries said: 

“You see, budgets are moral documents. And in our view, Mr. Speaker, budgets should be designed to lift people up. This reckless Republican budget that we are debating right now on the floor of the House of Representatives tears people down.”

Jeffries continued, “This reckless Republican budget is an immoral document, and everybody should vote no against it because of how it attacks children and seniors and everyday Americans and people with disabilities. This reckless Republican budget is an immoral document, and that is why I stand here on the floor of the House of Representatives with my colleagues in the House Democratic Caucus to stand up and push back against it with everything we have, on behalf of the American people.”

Jeffries will inevitably finish speaking and yield the floor, at which point the House will move forward and pass Trump’s big, beautiful bill with all but one Republican now on board.