Yesterday, State Senator Wendy Davis (D. TX) caught the attention of the national press:
http://www.nydailynews.com/...
Wearing pink tennis shoes to prepare for nearly 13 consecutive hours of standing, a Democratic Texas state senator on Tuesday began a one-woman filibuster to block a GOP-led effort that would impose stringent new abortion restrictions across the nation's second-most populous state.
Sen. Wendy Davis, 50, of Fort Worth began the filibuster at 11:18 a.m. CDT Tuesday and passed the nine-hour mark in her countdown to midnight — the deadline for the end of the 30-day special session.
Rules stipulate she remain standing, not lean on her desk or take any breaks — even for meals or to use the bathroom. But she must also stay on topic, and Republicans pointed out a mistake and later protested again when another lawmaker helped her with a back brace. One more error, and Republicans could stop the filibuster.
If signed into law, the measures would close almost every abortion clinic in Texas, a state 773 miles wide and 790 miles long with 26 million people. A woman living along the Mexico border or in West Texas would have to drive hundreds of miles to obtain an abortion if the law passes. - New York Daily News, 6/25/13
And while Senate Republicans pushed to shut down Davis' filibuster, she remained resilient in her efforts:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...
With 12 minutes to go before the special session's end at 12 a.m. local time, Senate Republicans tried to vote on the abortion bill. But the crowd of protesters in the capitol erupted into loud cheers and screams. Amid the bedlam, it was unclear whether a vote was taken before the clock ran out on the session.
Republicans said it passed, according to the The Austin American-Statesman. Several Democrats told the newspaper the midnight deadline had passed while the vote was still being taken.
The raucous end climaxed Davis' daylong filibuster, shut down by Senate Republicans 90 minutes before the legislative session expired.
Davis, who took no bathroom breaks and wore a back brace so she would not have to lean on anything, captured the attention of President Barack Obama, lawmakers, celebrities and spectators from around the world as she attempted to fight off Republican efforts to thwart her filibuster.
"I will not yield," she replied defiantly as one Republican colleague tried to ask her a question and coax her into slipping off topic, which would have broken the legislative rules and brought the filibuster to an end.
But around 10 p.m. local time, Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst (R) ruled that Davis' discussion of mandatory ultrasound testing was not germane to the anti-abortion bill. The legislation that Davis protested would prohibit abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy, regulate first-trimester abortion clinics as ambulatory surgical centers and restrict access to medication abortions. But it does not specifically mention ultrasounds.
Republicans had ruled earlier in the afternoon that Davis broke Senate rules by having someone help her put on her back brace.
As soon as Davis was removed from the Senate floor, Texans staged a sit-in in the capitol building, chanting, "Let her speak!" A few Democrats tried to stall the vote on the bill and appeal the ruling that ultrasounds were not relevant to the legislation. - Huffington Post, 6/25/13
I applaud Davis' filibuster and doing the right thing. Here's a little more info about Davis:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/...
She knows about single motherhood, and poverty. The 50-year-old Davis had to care for her three siblings at the age of 14 for her single mother, and became a single mother herself at the age of 19.
She knows the law. Davis became the first person in her family to graduate from college, with a degree from Texas Christian University and then Harvard Law School. She clerked, litigated, and spent a few years in the title insurance business before starting her own practice for federal and local government affairs, real estate, and contract compliance.
She put in her political time. Davis spent nine years on the Fort Worth City Council, focusing on neighborhood economic development. When she was elected to the state senate in 2008, she became the 12th Democrat in the upper chamber–just enough to keep the Republicans from closing off debate on bills.
She’s got eclectic interests. Davis has sponsored bills on everything from cancer prevention to payday lending to protecting victims of sexual assault to government transparency. - Washington Post, 6/26/13
Davis is known as a rising star in Texas politics and the Texas Democratic Party. She's been mentioned a potential candidate for Governor and even U.S. Senate. But here's the most important thing to know about Davis:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...
Texas state Sen. Wendy Davis (D), who captivated the country with her attempted 13-hour filibuster of a sweeping anti-abortion bill, likely would have lost her seat in 2012 to redistricting if not for the Voting Rights Act that was gutted Tuesday by the U.S. Supreme Court.
MSNBC's Zachary Roth reported earlier this month that Republican leaders in Texas tried to slice up Davis' Fort Worth district in 2011 and move thousands of black and Hispanic voters into neighboring districts. But Davis challenged the move in federal court under Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act -- a part of the law rendered inoperable by the Supreme Court decision that struck down the heart of the law.
Section 5 allows the federal government to prevent states with a history of racial discrimination from making election changes that could affect the voting rights of minorities. Davis told MSNBC that under Texas' new districting plan, minority voters “were being separated very purposely from each other -- and therefore from the power to ever express their preference at the ballot box again.”
Davis and the U.S. Justice Department won the case in August 2012, a few months before elections, and Texas was forced to drop its redistricting plan. Davis was narrowly reelected to her state Senate seat in November. - Huffington Post, 6/26/13
The Supreme Court's decision to strike down Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act gave Texas Republicans the opportunity to immediately push through voter ID laws:
http://www.ksat.com/...
The Texas Voter ID law adopted by lawmakers in 2011 but later blocked by the U.S. Justice Department will take effect immediately, according to Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott.
In a statement Tuesday, Abbott also said, “Redistricting maps passed by the Legislature may also take effect without approval from the federal government.”
His announcement came soon after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled Section 4 of the 1965 Voting Rights Act unconstitutional.
Considered at the heart of the historic civil rights legislation, Section 4 mandated that states like Texas with a history of discrimination get pre-clearance before making an changes in election law or how elections are conducted.
“Laws that apply unequally to just some states have no place in our nation,” Abbott said.
But Manuel Medina, chairman of the Bexar County Democratic Party, said the law served to protect minority voters.
“Republicans have time after time tried to prevent voters from having access to voter registration, to going to vote,” Medina said.
People like Wendy Davis are real threats to Texas Republicans, especially since they know their control over Texas is slipping:
http://www.rollingstone.com/...
Last year, Davis' offices were firebombed in an attack that many speculated was connected to her vigorous support of Planned Parenthood from Republican attempts to strip the health care provider of funding. Undeterred, Davis has doubled down in her defense of reproductive rights in the state. And she isn't going it alone. Thousands of activists from within the state organized opposition to SB5, supported by thousands more activists online. Ignoring calls by some to just let Texas and the health of its citizens go, they dug in – knowing that if conservatives succeeded in Texas, they'd likely succeed in places like Ohio.
Conservatives understand this point, too. Like California during the 1980s, Texas is turning blue thanks to women and people of color, and the right wing has no real plan or platform to capture those voters. Instead, they had planned to hold the state by force, as Tuesday night's events made clear. What they didn't plan on was Davis and her feminist army. And they're not going anywhere. - Rolling Stone, 6/26/13
Of course Governor Rick Perry (R. TX) is too stupid to see that change is coming to the Lone Star state and keeps on trying to push his radical right-wing agenda:
http://www.cbsnews.com/...
Gov. Rick Perry on Wednesday called a second special session of the Texas Legislature to pass widespread abortion restrictions across the nation's second-largest state, after the first attempt by Republicans died overnight following a marathon one-woman filibuster.
Perry ordered lawmakers to meet again on July 1 to act on the abortion proposals, as well as separate bills that would boost highway funding and deal with a juvenile justice issue. The sweeping abortion rules would close nearly all the state's abortion clinics and impose other widespread restrictions.
Perry can call as many 30-day extra sessions as he likes, but lawmakers can only take up those issues he assigns. - CBS News, 6/26/13
And if you would like to see Davis run against Perry next year, please do donate to the Draft Wendy Davis campaign:
http://campaigns.dailykos.com/...