The issue involved plans by Smith Corona, a typewriter maker, to move some 875 jobs from its upstate New York factory to Mexico to lower its wage base and help it compete against the lower-priced Japanese imports that had entered the market.

Among other digressions in the course of his filibuster, which lasted 15 hours and 14 minutes, D’Amato sang “South of the Border (Down Mexico Way).” Had D’Amato spoken for another 17 minutes, he would have broken the record Sen. Huey Long (D-La.) set in 1935 when he conducted one of the most notable filibusters in Senate history — an effort that included his recipes for fried oysters and turnip-green pot liquor.

So as not to interrupt other Senate business — a consideration that rarely arose in the filibusters of the pre-TV era — D’Amato began speaking around dinnertime and continued into the following morning. His ostensible object was to amend a pending $27 tax bill to lower the company’s incentive to move. He abandoned his quest after the House adjourned for the year, thereby dooming any chances that his amendment would be included in the final legislation.

D’Amato went on to win reelection that November by 90,000 votes out of 6 million cast.

As a dark-horse candidate, D’Amato defeated incumbent Sen. Jacob Javits in the 1980 Republican primary, after Javits had been diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or Lou Gehrig’s disease. D’Amato lost his Senate seat in 1998 to then-Rep. Charles Schumer after labeling his Democratic opponent a “putzhead” in a meeting with Jewish supporters.