Connecticut senator says filibuster will force gun control vote in Senate
Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy, groggy from a 15-hour Senate filibuster that attracted national attention, said Thursday morning that he has a promise from Republican leaders that a vote will be held on two gun control measures: expanding background checks and barring people on terror watch lists from purchasing guns.
Senate leaders have not indicated when that vote will occur, Murphy said.
"There is an agreement to have votes on the floor of the Senate," Murphy said in an interview Thursday morning. He said there was no formal agreement, but "we walked off the floor with an understanding that the leadership were going to bring votes on measures to stop terrorists from getting guns on the Senate floor."
"I think we made a difference," he said. "This was a classic filibuster, this wasn't a stunt, this wasn't a prearranged showcase, this was an effort to shut down the Senate until we got an agreement. In that respect we succeeded."
The filibuster, which ground the Senate to a halt on a day when they were scheduled to take up an appropriations bill that included funding for the FBI, the Justice Department and other agencies, quickly became the political story of the day, capturing national attention on news websites and social media.
Murphy said his body "held up pretty well" during the near-15 hours that he was required to remain standing without leaving the chamber and without eating, "but it was very nice to sit down and rest my legs."
After a few hours of sleep, he was up early Thursday, doing the morning talk show circuit, and then it was off to his son's school for an end of the year celebration.
"I had to be in my son's classroom at 8:30 a.m., and I was excited to be there," Murphy said.
More than 10,000 calls of support poured into Murphy's office. He said he was in contact with some of the Sandy Hook families during the filibuster, and he used the story of one of the first-graders killed in the massacre in his closing remarks. Since the shooting, Murphy has positioned himself as a leading advocate for stricter gun control laws.
"I wake up every day thinking about those little kids," he said. "I'm never going to stop fighting."
Murphy received words of encouragement from Hillary Clinton, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, and politicians across the country. Connecticut's U.S. House members visited the chamber to cheer him on. And Murphy's oldest son watched from the gallery at one point, with the senator directly addressing him.
"I hope that you'll understand, someday, why we're doing this," he said. "Why we have been standing here for eight hours trying to fight to make our country a safer and better place and why sometimes even if you don't get everything that you want, trying hard _ trying and trying and trying to do the right thing _ is ultimately just as important as getting the outcome in the end."
Murphy, who had been elected to represent Connecticut a month before 20 first-graders and six educators were gunned down in a Newtown elementary school, said he wouldn't stop talking until the Republican-led Senate agreed to hold a vote on two gun control measures: expanding background checks and barring people on terror watch lists from purchasing guns.
"I am most of the time around here a team player, but I've had enough," he said late Wednesday morning.
More than 14 hours later, after dozens of his Democratic colleagues rose to support him, Murphy got his wish. He had been told the two issues would be called for a vote, but their fate remains uncertain.
Democrats have ratcheted up their push for gun control legislation after 49 men and women were slain in an Orlando nightclub Sunday morning by a man armed with semi-automatic AR-15 rifle, the deadliest mass shooting in the nation's history. They hope the attack will be a tipping point for a Congress that failed to enact any new gun laws following the murders of moviegoers in Colorado, worshipers at a South Carolina church and people attending a work holiday party in California.
