Yesterday morning at 3:55 a.m. sophomore Matt Vassar could be heard from as far away as El Centro Chicano reading from Jon Stewart’s best-seller “America.” Vassar had an audience of one — his fellow filibusterer Bobby Lepore, a sophomore, who had just finished reading excerpts from the 9 / 11 Commission report.

Other reading material has included the Harry Potter series and the Declaration of Independence.

“It’s actually a fun document to read,” said sophomore Marie Jonas, president of the Stanford Democrats, referring to the Declaration. “It has a little spark to it.”

Having started on Wednesday at noon, the Stanford filibuster was scheduled to last for 25 hours. Instead, it will continue until at least 1 p.m. today and possibly longer.

The participants are protesting the efforts of U.S. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) to change Senate rules to prohibit Democrats from using the filibuster to block President George W. Bush’s judicial nominees. A filibuster is a Senate tactic that enables a minority party to prolong debates on an issue ad infinitum, effectively killing any legislation by preventing it from reaching a vote.

“There have been so many people asking about it and signing up, so we decided to continue it for an extra day,” said freshman Debashish Bakshi, a member of the Stanford Democrats who helped man the filibuster’s table yesterday.

The Stanford filibuster is modeled after a similar protest at Princeton, Frist’s alma mater, which has garnered national media attention.

One hour at a time, Stanford students have been reading aloud from anything they please at a makeshift podium under the Birdcage in White Plaza.

While the Stanford students cannot boast the 384 hours logged by their Princeton peers, they have already passed the marks set by protesters at both Harvard and UC Berkeley, who ended their filibusters on schedule, at 25 and 26 hours, respectively.

Thus far, Political Science Prof. Larry Diamond has been the only faculty member to participate.

Diamond, who served as an adviser to the American-led Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq early last year, made an appearance at the podium on Wednesday afternoon to give a “non-partisan” speech on the importance of the filibuster.

Sixty out of 100 U.S. Senators will have to vote to end debate on a judicial nominee in order to end the current filibuster and force a vote. Frist is currently attempting to change the requirement to a simple majority, to to 51 votes,to break up the filibuster. If Frist and his colleagues succeed, the right for legislators to filibuster could be abolished entirely.

When she finished her time slot at 1 p.m. yesterday, the first thing Jonas did was reach for a bottle of water. She had already read for two and a half hours the day before.

“Yesterday was okay but today my voice is a little shot,” she said. “I try to project into the plaza.”

Jonas read at a particularly difficult time, having to compete with the stereos set up by Raagapella and the Mendicants.

As of yesterday afternoon, Jonas said that more than 50 people had participated in the Stanford filibuster and more than 200 letters had been signed to send to U.S. Senators. There were also a few late-night slots that had not been claimed, which the organizers have been trying to sell as the “drunk hours.”