Sen. Jeff Merkley staged a nearly 15½-hour long marathon speech to protest Judge Neil Gorsuch’s nomination to the Supreme Court, wrapping up at just before 10:15 Wednesday morning.

The speech fell just a few minutes short of the seventh-longest Senate speech in the chamber’s history, which lasted 15 hours and 30 minutes. But Merkley’s action did not delay a procedural vote on Gorsuch, which was set before he began his speech.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., had already filed the cloture motion, or motion to end debate on Gorsuch’s nomination, before Merkley took the floor. That teed up a cloture vote on Thursday, which Merkley criticized as hastily moving the nomination.

“There is time between now and Thursday for us to air our views,” the Oregon Democrat said on the Senate floor around 8 p.m. Tuesday night.