WASHINGTON — Sen. Christopher S. Murphy stepped off the Senate floor early Thursday morning after talking about gun violence for almost 15 hours. But he’s not finished.
The Connecticut Democrat said he wants to build an “outside political movement” to work for legislation that will keep weapons from falling into the wrong hands. And he pledged to use any increased fundraising and organizing clout he may have gained from this week’s filibuster to help elect candidates who think like him.
“There has to be a storyline coming out of 2016 that shows that senators that voted against consensus measures like mandatory background checks pay a political price,” Murphy said.
The filibuster earned Democrats a chance to debate gun restrictions on the floor next week. The Senate has lined up four votes: two on measures restricting access for people on terror watch lists, and two for amendments enhancing background checks. The real change, Murphy conceded, will come through the electoral process.
He said in an interview that to the extent that “my lists and my reach got a little bit bigger” from his extended protest that began Wednesday morning, he would be working to raise money and support Democratic Senate candidates this year.
He is already working with outside groups that promote background-check legislation to craft what he described as a “coordinated strategy within the law for the 2016 elections.”
Murphy doesn’t always look the part of a senator. At 42, he’s among the youngest. Prior to his Senate election in 2012, he served three terms in the House. Rep. Elizabeth Esty, who represents Murphy’s old House district, noted that the junior senator was a brand new father at the time of the massacre at the Sandy Hook Elementary School, located in their district, that killed 20 children and six adults.
“It is our lifelong mission to make sure that other people don’t have to go through what these families have gone through,” Esty said.
Murphy can look even younger than he is: Backpack slung over a shoulder, he walks from his house in the leafy Tenleytown neighborhood most weekdays to drop one son off at preschool, and the other at a Washington, D.C., public school (Thursday was the final day of first grade) before taking the Metro to work.
His rather unusual beverage of choice is Diet Mountain Dew, often out of a paper cup, and he said he celebrated with one after the filibuster came to a close.
Murphy has become a leader among Democrats on firearms issues, even if it was not by design.
The mass shooting at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., in December 2012 came just weeks after Murphy was elected to the Senate, and so even before being sworn in, he had a gut-wrenching domestic policy priority.
In April 2013, supporters fell short of the votes needed to advance either a compromise expansion of federal background checks or a revival of a ban on assault weapons.
The background check measure had bipartisan backing led by Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin III of West Virginia and Republican Sen. Patrick J. Toomey of Pennsylvania, but even that could only garner the support of 54 senators, short of the 60 needed to overcome procedural hurdles.
The defeat didn’t stop Murphy who had given 45 floor speeches on gun violence before the filibuster.