Protesters outside the Texas Senate chamber cheer as Sen. Wendy Davis leaves on June 26, 2013. Image courtesy of the Texas Tribune, click for full story.
Political drama of the highest order unfolded here in Austin this last week. Conservative legislators planned to pass new restrictions and onerous regulations on clinics offering pregnancy counseling for thousands of women in Texas. By Tuesday morning they were under the gun, the session due to close at midnight, with a key piece of the Republican war on women still waiting lonely in the wings like an old sing-song bill waiting on capital hill. That's when state senator Wendy Davis got the floor, refused to yield, and the people's
filibuster was on:
At 11:18 a.m. this morning, State Senator Wendy Davis began a filibuster against SB5, which includes some of the most restrictive anti-woman anti-choice regulations in the nation. ... For more on what this awful bill does, click here.
I got a chance to watch some of it in person, talk to some supporters and read some background, and concluded Wendy Davis is what any Texan worth their boots would call a
tough hombre. She doesn't merely sympathize with working people, she is one of us. Davis hit the workforce at age 14 to help support her single mother who was trying to raise four children while working at an ice cream shop. By age 19 she was a single mom herself. Despite those challenges, she worked her way through community college as an entry level paralegal, went on to attend nearby Texas Christian University where she graduated first in her class despite working two jobs to make ends meet. If that's not impressive enough, Davis went on to Harvard Law School, graduating with a law degree at age 33. During which time she had another child. On Tuesday that determination was in full force. Join me below for the rest of the epic story.
But first: Sign the Daily Kos petition to draft Wendy Davis to run for governor!
Like every other state where Republicans have gained control, the promised focus on jobs has morphed into an ugly war on women justified on narrow quasi-religious pretext. Something on the order of a thousand bills have been put up assaulting women's rights and women's health. Texas is no exception and the only thing between SB5 being rammed through easily before the clock struck twelve was one brave state senator and a few hundred spectators.
Majority Leader Reid take note: this is old school filibustering. According to rules of the Texas Senate, Davis had to stand for the entire time, could not eat anything, not so much as a sip of water. She could not lean or sit or otherwise use any desk or chair for support, she could not even take a quick bathroom break! Despite these restrictions, Davis stood her ground and spoke passionately, nonstop, through the day, into the evening, and on toward midnight. Real and virtual crowds grew, #SB5 exploded to become a top trending tag on Twitter.
Thanks to the Texas Tribune's live feed and many onsite tweets with expert commentary keeping readers informed minute to minute, it soon became clear we were witnessing a rare event, indeed a very special one, the birth of a new progressive champion on the national stage was unfolding before our eyes. In the deep red Lone Star State of all places! But with midnight on the horizon, the filibuster was suddenly shut down in its tracks. Naturally, by Texas Republicans on dicey technicalities. Hopes were briefly dashed.
When I got home after 11 PM, pessimistic, I found it was not covered live on any cable news station I could find. But online was a completely different story, the excitement was palpable, someone had stood up to the powerful good ole boys who have held sway over Texas for far too long.
That's when the people took over. Democrats on the floor quickly called up parliamentary procedures buying critical minutes, news ripped through the crowds and they starting voicing their disgust. With galleries in the rotunda overflowing, the clock ticking down, the eyes of Texas and the nation upon them and the crowd now roaring, republicans were literally in disarray. They grew desperate, eventually trying to hold a quiet, hasty vote just after the midnight curfew, back-date it on the ledge page, and then adjourn, perhaps smug in the belief they had won. Early Wednesday morning the Texas Tribune reported that that blatant violation will not stand:
The nation watched on Tuesday — and into Wednesday — as Democratic Sen. Wendy Davis and hundreds of impassioned reproductive rights advocates stalled proceedings and ultimately defeated controversial abortion legislation in a storm of screams and shouts as the clock struck midnight.
"I am overwhelmed, honestly,” Davis said after standing for nearly 13 hours to filibuster Senate Bill 5, the abortion legislation. The outpouring of support from protesters at the Capitol and across the nation, she said, “shows the determination and spirit of Texas women and people who care about Texas women."
Wendy Davis and her dedicated professional staff are no strangers to standing up for the people against long odds, even when they know they might lose, or worse. They are certainly familiar with the consequences that can follow in this day and age. The Davis Fort Worth office was
fire-bombed last year. Davis is already
being demonized for her stand. The GOP will try again, any way they can, to get SB5 passed. Rick Perry has already announced another special session to ram this odious bill through. We will all try again, we will try to shame them and expose them and use every legal and ethical method to kill the bill. Nevertheless, the battle field is tilted against us, we may lose the skirmish.
But one day we will win the battle. Thanks to lots of people, like Wendy Davis and her staff (A staff I'm told is almost legendary in the commitment and resources they devote to constituent services) the tide may be beginning to turn in Texas faster than we could have dared hope! In fact she's reportedly considering a run in the 2014 Texas governor's race. Even in the event of a close defeat, such a run would badly rattle the GOP and boost progressive morale. It would also field test how organized the growing coalitions of disaffected voters in Texas that would engineer that revolution are becoming. If she were to pull off an upset, the implications for future elections far and wide are devastating for the GOP beginning immediately.
That will be a major lift, we'll need all the help we can get, and I'm not talking about money, not today folks. I'm talking about support. If you want to consider getting more involved at some point, high school kids through retirees anxious to throw in with the underdog candidate against the Harkonnens might be needed in droves. I'm talking unpaid door knockers, phone banking and data entry, too. Most of all, before this can even begin to coalesce, the Davis office needs to see the mojo; something that ought to be familiar in concept here! But this isn't asking much, many have done way more for a lot less. History is rife with examples.
In the Battle of Cowpens, General Daniel Morgan only asked his rag-tag irregulars to take two good shots before retreating in the face of the better trained and heavily armed British Army. It was brilliant strategy, Continental Irregulars stood their ground and made those two shots count, the seemingly invincible British lines panicked, some began to fold, the tide soon turned in favor of the underdogs, and no less than George Washington's relative [Correction DS] chased Bernaste Tarlton off the field of battle in final defeat. It was one of the key turning points in the long, bloody Revolutionary War. Many of the fallen on that day were mere teenagers, boys really, who who never got to grow up. But thanks to them and others like them, our revolutions today are no longer fought with guns and steel on blood-stained fields littered with corpses. To our great national pride we now hold bloodless revolutions regularly, at the ballot box, in peace.
I believe we can open up fault lines in the Texas republicans using similar, proven, asymmetric tactics to bring about a modern day electoral revolution in what has been a reliable GOP stronghold critical to republican victories. No one's asking for two shots, all we need to get started is for you take two minutes to drop Davis and her staff a note of encouragement here via Daily Kos and/or here on her site.
Let them know this is not a one day phenomenon, a mere fifteen minutes of fame, and that we will always remember and support those who risk their livelihoods and careers to do what is right for millions of disenfranchised people. Who will remain increasingly isolated and exiled from meaningful political influence without progressive champions like Wendy Davis.