At 11:18 this morning, State Senator Wendy Davis took to the floor of the Texas State Senate, beginning a filibuster that Democrats hope will stop the passage of a bill that targets abortion rights in the state. Senator Davis wore pink tennis shoes, ready for the almost 13 hours she must continue speaking to keep Republicans from calling for a vote.
She can’t sit down. She can’t leave to pee.
That makes Senator Davis a lonely combatant in the War on Women. She alone must continue to speak until midnight tonight, when the 30 day special session will expire, along with the abortion bill. Senator Davis says she plans to read the stories of women and their doctors who would be adversely affected by the new restrictions into the record.
The Dems chose her because she was a teenage mother herself.
Strength to your sword arm voice, legs, and bladder, Senator!
Update: the livestream.
Share your abortion story with Wendy Davis:
https://services.myngp.com/ngponlineservices/petition.aspx?X=mfnxb8Ng0l8=
She has four more hours to go, and she needs relevant stuff to talk about so she can hold the floor.
Make that, 6 more hours to go.
Tweeted and Facebooked.
Wow, they still have real filibusters somewhere? Go, Wendy!
Wow, quite literally ‘taking a stand’. I hope she (and her pink tennis shoes) succeeds 🙂
Go Wendy!
The Senate voted along partisan lines to give Davis a second warning because another Senator helped her adjust her back brace. Third warning breaks her filibuster. Now she has to go another 4.5 hours without touching her desk, looking like she might be touching her desk, giving testimony that the other side can argue isn’t on-topic enough, or running out of testimony to give.
Policing a woman’s behavior, gestures, health, and words, to force through a bill to deny abortions.
Fuck!!!
Sources for that last are all over Twitter right now:
https://twitter.com/ACLUTx/status/349689604942729216
Background on this filibuster:
http://www.policymic.com/articles/50909/senate-bill-5-if-you-re-looking-for-passionate-pro-choice-advocates-try-texas
Sen. Judith Zaffirini (D-Laredo) pointed out a bit ago that the rules specifically say ““may not lean on his desk, his chair” and that therefore the rule does not actually apply to Sen. Davis.”
There doesn’t seem to be anything about this at all on the main NBC News page. What is wrong with these journalists? Just in terms of drama and human interest, you’d think everyone would be on this!
Wendy Davis is trending worldwide on Twitter, has the top hashtag, there are 28K viewers on the youtube livestream… and nothing from mainstream media except a half-assed NYT blog post and a couple of mentions on Rachel Maddow.
http://takingnote.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/06/25/the-great-abortion-filibuster
http://maddowblog.msnbc.com/_news/2013/06/24/19117053-video-in-texas-rape-kits-debate-the-sound-of-abortion-politics?lite
https://twitter.com/MorteDeMocknbrd/status/349702531263381505
brucegee1962, this just now from the Barack Obama twitter account:
Maybe that will help with the media paying attention!
Also, I think it’s kind of sad that actions like this seem to be the only way now to stop bills of this kind, since reasoned debate is no longer possible…
Three hours to go…
9 PM and CNN finally gets half a clue, just after Obama’s tweet:
http://www.cnn.com/2013/06/25/politics/texas-abortion-bill/index.html?hpt=hp_t2
Gotta give equal time to Perry saying how concernedTM he is about women’s health.
Live feed is up over 37K viewers.
Now Texas senate trying to play the off-topic card for a third strike.
https://twitter.com/AntheaButler/status/349717301676867585
ProfB @AntheaButler 5m
If you have to have the sonogram before the abortion, it relates to the abortion bill, damn it Rep. Tx Senators are trying EVERYTHING. #dumb
Retweeted by Jennifer Gunter
Expand
Becca Aaronson Becca Aaronson @becca_aa 6m
.@WendyDavisTexas argues #AbortionSonogram law germane b/c #SB5 provisions would be stacked on top further reducing access to #abortion
Retweeted by Jennifer Gunter
Speaker tried to unilaterally call a third strike – now the other senators are calling him on it. Democratic senator Van de Putte (who just rushed in from her father’s funeral) holding him to a recounting of the previous two strikes.
https://twitter.com/pervocracy/status/349729110894981122
Cliff Pervocracy @pervocracy 14m
Seriously, are women’s lives hinging on a “keep the senate dicking around for 100 more minutes” game?
Details
Ana Mardoll Ana Mardoll @AnaMardoll
That is precisely what is happening. Women will live or die on this. @pervocracy @kristinrawls
(posted also at Pharyngula)
Looks like they’re clearing the gallery completely, and word is one woman’s been arrested.
https://twitter.com/BuzzFeedNews/status/349756928370544640
BuzzFeed News @BuzzFeedNews 5m
BREAKING: Republicans pass new restrictions expected to close almost every abortion clinic in Texas, @AP is now reporting
(Oh sure, NOW the media covers it. *spits* )
https://twitter.com/BuzzFeedNews/status/349757093764534273
BuzzFeed News @BuzzFeedNews 4m
The official Senate computer says there was a vote, 17-12 to pass #SB5 – Dems say it was after midnight, @cltomlinson reports
https://twitter.com/BuzzFeedNews/status/349758018990247938
BuzzFeed News @BuzzFeedNews 1m
RT @TumaTime: So Dan Patrick just told us #SB5 passed 19-10. I asked if it bothered him that no one heard. He said well, the Senators heard.
From what I can see, the clock ran out but the Republicans are trying to vote anyway?
Who actually enforces a legislature’s procedural rules? If the majority of a legislature tries to do something that is, according to the body’s own parliamentary procedure, invalid, who stops them?
Robert B: word is, someone would have to file a lawsuit and get the legislation that came out of this mess overturned. Until then, it’d still be law… plenty of time to enforce it and shut those clinics down.
CBS News and the AP, so ostentatiously silent while this filibuster was going on, leaped in at midnight to declare the abortion restrictions passed. Even though reporters on the floor are saying the senators leaving aren’t sure if there was a legal vote or what they even voted ON.
Robert, not ‘trying to,’ they voted. And the bill passed.
They started the vote at 12.01 am, but it got logged as 11.59pm to make it “legal.” Reporters are all over social media confirming it was after midnight, but Lt. Gov. Dewhurst is still claiming it was just before…
In any case, anyone still voting GOP after this disgusting display will feel my (verbal) wrath!
Texas Legislature Online says it didn’t pass before midnight.
And now they’ve changed the timestamp on Texas Legislature Online!
Screenshot that shows before and after the timestamp change.
http://www.stableytimes.com/news/wendy-davis-senate-filibuster-wins-texas-sb5-abortion-bill-is-dead/
Wendy Davis is clearly awesome.
It played out so symbolically – it started with one woman who would not sit down and not be quiet. When she was silenced, it was taken up by her colleagues, and when they were silenced, it was taken up by the people. It was amazing to watch.
Not to mention how purely, obviously evil her opponents were, nitpicking procedural rules to the point of trying to use her adjustment of a back brace as a reason to make her stop, trying to actually change the time stamp of the vote to make it legal. If this bill had been about anything other than abortion, Disney would have a movie made about it coming out by next summer.
This is the best tweet: HAVE ALL YOU LADIES TRIED BEING POLITE FOR ONCE??
Glad this worked out in the end. I do wonder, though, does the wording of the filibuster regulations mean that a Senator who uses a wheelchair or other similar assistive device is not allowed to filibuster? That seems… discriminatory.
It’s not over yet… Perry has already called for another special session to push this bill through saying that “Texans value life and want to protect women and the unborn.”
Do they honestly believe themselves when they say they value life and want to protect women, or are they just hoping that there will be enough gullible people duped into thinking that they believe it…?
Well they have in mind a very special meaning of “protect” – they mean “protect women from the awful fate of having the ability to decide when to have children and when not to.”
Hm. I assume they’ll try to rig things so the filibuster trick won’t work the next time. It really pisses me off that women in Texas are reduced to having to defend their basic human rights by parliamentary rules munchkinry.
Ophelia, #29:
Ah, but of course. It makes me so angry that the religious right has managed to frame the discussion in terms of “women’s safety” for this kind of legislation. Is this really just the result of the Tea Partiers being voted in in 2010, or can we expect this to last for a long time?
Anne, #30:
Me too! When I was watching the live stream yesterday, I thought how sad it was that Davis had to resort to this because reasonable discussion about abortion is no longer possible in this country. There are many things I love about living in Tennessee, but as for being valued as a human being, I miss Europe…
Oh, and by the way, Gov. Perry made those comments about valuing life and protecting women on the very same day that Texas had its 500th execution, in which they put to death 52-year-old Kimberly McCarthy.