Republicans own Texas' state government. Or they did up until yesterday. After an effort to pass the nation's strongest anti-abortion legislation, Texas Republicans found they had failed -- thanks to a persistent filibuster by Senator Wendy Davis, a Texas Senate Democrat and a huge and loud turnout of Democratic voters in the gallery.
Check out the local video: Crowd Goes Wild in Senate.The state Senate voted on the abortion bill at the end of a 10-hour-plus filibuster by a Fort Worth Democrat. But the vote came right at a midnight Tuesday deadline amid widespread confusion and the noise of a chanting crowd of the bill’s opponents in an upstairs gallery. The legislative session expired at midnight, and Senate Democrats said the vote took place past the deadline at 12:02 a.m. or 12:03 a.m., while Republicans disputed those claims, saying the vote was legitimate.
But at 3 a.m., Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst, the presiding officer of the Senate and a Republican supporter of the bill, told lawmakers and reporters that although the bill passed on a 19-to-10 vote, the bill could not be signed in the presence of the Senate and was therefore dead, blaming “an unruly mob using Occupy Wall Street tactics” as the primary cause. ...NYT
My, my! How Republicans love filibusters except when filibusters are used against them.
The reversal served as an embarassing episode for Mr. Dewhurst and Republican senators on a divisive bill that was closely watched around the nation, both by anti-abortion activists and supporters of abortion rights.
“The G.O.P. Senate leadership comes out of this whole process looking somewhat disingenuous, deceptive and disorganized,” said Mark Jones, a political science professor at Rice University in Houston. ...NYT
Governor Rick Perry is sure to call yet another "special session" of the legislature to try again.
Of course, just like the bad old days, you can always get an abortion. In Texas it's simple, familiar --and nasty. One provider of women's health services is familiar with the unhealthy options.
“We’ve already seen women taking matters into their own hands,” she said, because of an existing state requirement of a 24-hour waiting period for abortions, which forces women to go to the clinic twice. Many women seeking abortions, she said, are already mothers and do not have the time or money to travel long distances for the procedure.
“I’ve seen women who asked their partners to punch them in the stomach repeatedly,” Ms. Hagstrom Miller said, adding that she believed the law and widespread closings of clinics would force more women to attempt “self-induced abortions.” ...NYT
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Wendy Davis is the stalwart Democratic senator who kept the filibuster going for 11+ hours, keeping to the rules of not using anything to lean on while filibustering. A sample of the rules:
Can the filibustering senator get help from her friends?
Yes. The filibustering senator can yield for questions. If another senator -- say, a non-crappy Democrat who supports the rights of women -- rises to be recognized to ask questions, the senator can choose to yield the floor to them. Said senator then takes the floor back when they are finished.
The senator who has the floor yielded to him or her cannot in turn yield the floor to someone else. The filibusterer -- here, Davis -- gets it back.
Can Republicans try to shout her down or cut her off? They seem to REALLY have a knack for that lately.
Under the senate rules, a filibustering senator cannot be interrupted.
What about, ahem, calls of nature?
We know you are all thinking this. No, once a Senator starts a filibuster they cannot sit down or leave the floor for a snack or a bathroom break. ...from the Burnt Orange Report
The photo comes from Davis' campaign website along with a bio.
...She began working after school at 14 to help support her single mother and three siblings. By 19, Wendy was a single mother herself, working two jobs to make ends meet in hopes of creating a better life for her young daughter.
Through a brochure laid on her desk by a co-worker, Wendy learned of a paralegal program at Tarrant County Community College that she thought could be the ticket to creating that better life for her young daughter. After two years of community college, Wendy transferred to Texas Christian University. With the help of academic scholarships and student loans, Wendy not only became the first person in her family to earn a bachelor’s degree, but graduated first in her class and was accepted to Harvard Law School.
After graduating with honors from Harvard Law, Wendy became a practicing attorney in Fort Worth and served nine years on the Fort Worth City Council, where she was recognized as a leader on economic development issues. As chair of the City’s Economic Development Committee, Wendy helped create numerous public/private partnerships and successfully helped to bring thousands of new jobs to Tarrant County.
Wendy was elected to the Texas Senate in 2008, defeating a longtime Republican incumbent in a race widely considered one of the biggest upsets in Texas politics in recent times. Last year, she was the lone voice to take on Governor Perry and his majority, staging a filibuster and forcing a special session in her attempt to stop $5 billion in crippling cuts to Texas public schools. Wendy’s legislative advocacy does not stop there. She authored and collaborated to pass a law that will bring justice to rape victims and jail sexual assault predators before they commit another crime by addressing Texas’ backlog of tens of thousands of DNA samples collected from sexual assaults. ...WendyDavisForSenate
