Nancy Pelosi's Marathon

Nancy Pelosi, the House Minority Leader spoke for around 8 hours today to oppose the expenditure deal to lift spending caps and avoid a government shutdown. She’s doing this because the plan does not address the major immigration issues relating to DACA and the “dreamers”. It was relayed from the House Historian's office to CNN that Pelosi's speech is currently the longest on record on the House floor. Pelosi started speaking shortly after 10 a.m. ET, and was stopped speaking as of 6:10 p.m. ET. A source close to Pelosi stated she thought of the idea overnight to speak for hours on the House floor. The source said she's wearing four-inch-heels while delivering the speech and has only been sipping water. The deal proposed by Senate leaders on Wednesday, requires Democratic support to pass the House, so the House Democratic leader's notes make the path they’ll take uncertain. Nancy Pelosi says she opposes the spending deal for the reason that it doesn't contain a lasting resolution for undocumented immigrants affected by the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. Pelosi has been sharing statements from DACA recipients about themselves and their successes in the US. We have to be strong as a country ... to respect the aspirations of people who are our future," Pelosi said on the House floor. "The young people are our future and these dreamers are part of that. They've been enriched ... by the greatness of our country." She went on saying, "Our plea to the speaker is for us, for ourselves, to honor the values of our founders."

The House Democrats are expected to spend the next 24 hours pushing to get a vow from House Speaker Paul Ryan for the consideration of DACA bills. Currently, Ryan has not indicated he is considering giving that to Democrats. However, this could change depending on whether the Democratic caucus is cohesive enough to keep him short of the 216 votes he needs, but that's not probable at this point in time. A source told CNN that Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer worked on the spending deal for weeks. They also failed to include any other House Democrats in their negotiations. Then she rejected it.

House Speaker Paul Ryan's representative said Ryan has "repeatedly stated" he supports an immigration reform bill including DACA. "Speaker Ryan has already repeatedly stated we intend to do a DACA and immigration reform bill -- one that the President supports," AshLee Strong said in a statement. White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Pelosi "should not hold our military hostage over a separate issue. We've laid out what we would like to see in immigration legislation and I think it's something Nancy Pelosi should support and hopefully she'll come on board," she said during the White House briefing Wednesday. "We can get this budget deal done and then we can focus on getting this immigration deal done.” Before Pelosi's speech Wednesday, the longest floor speech from a leader was by then-House GOP Leader John Boehner in 2009 speaking against the Democrats' cap and trade legislation. Boehner's roughly one-hour speech was dubbed a "Fila-Boehner." Boehner was on the floor to make a political point because as the minority leader he didn’t have enough power to support the legislation he opposed. The bill to address carbon dioxide emissions passed by a small amount in the House but died in the Senate. GOP opposition to the plan was attributed with helping to start the Tea Party movement. There are no filibusters under House rules, but top leaders are allowed unrestricted "leader time" and it's not unusual for Pelosi to be given "one minute" but take more than 20 minutes.

https://www.cnn.com/2018/02/07/politics/house-democrats-daca-budget-deal/index.html