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Republicans do not pay their debts.

“Until such time as the world ends, we will act as though it intends to spin on.”

People are weird.

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America is going up in flames. The NYTimes fawns over MAGA celebrities. No longer a real newspaper.

The current Supreme Court is a dangerous, rogue court.

“In the future, this lab will be a museum. do not touch it.”

Let there be snark.

Republicans seem to think life begins at the candlelight dinner the night before.

The snowflake in chief appeared visibly frustrated when questioned by a reporter about egg prices.

I’m more christian than these people and i’m an atheist.

If a good thing happens for a bad reason, it’s still a good thing.

Every one of the “Roberts Six” lied to get on the court.

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Take hopelessness and turn it into resilience.

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You are here: Home / Politics / Proud to Be A Democrat / The Mess In Texas

The Mess In Texas

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Probably not going to get more definitive than this, until the lawyers show up for business hours. NBC News:

As the clock passed midnight Tuesday in Texas, a scene of remarkable chaos unfolded in the state Senate chamber as an eruption of cheering and chanting drowned out the legislative action, leaving it unclear whether a bill that would have shut down most of the state’s abortion clinics had passed.

Republican senators claimed the measure passed, the Austin American-Statesman and Dallas Morning News reported. But both outlets also reported that Democratic senators insisted the vote was not completed before midnight and was thus invalid…

The day began with Democratic Sen. Wendy Davis attempting a 13-hour filibuster to kill the bill. The only way Democrats in the Republican-controlled Senate could have defeated the measure was by not letting it come to a vote before the session was to end at midnight (1 a.m. Wednesday ET)…

Late Tuesday night, Davis ran afoul of a three-strikes-and-you’re-out rule when Republican Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst, acting as Senate president, upheld an objection that she had strayed from the topic again, this time by discussing a 2011 law involving sonograms and abortions, which he ruled was non-germane to the abortion bill…

That opened the door for the Senate’s Republican majority to call for a straight up-or-down vote to end Davis’ remarks. A series of motions, appeals and parliamentary inquiries on that order followed.

As midnight neared, raucous cheering erupted from the gallery during a roll call vote. The cheering, witnessed on a live video stream of the session, halted Senate action for several minutes. And it remained unclear whether a vote on the bill was taken….

In a show of support for Davis, President Barack Obama tweeted Tuesday night: “Something special is happening in Austin tonight. #StandWithWendy”.

Video at the link, and (I’m sure) more posts to follow as things develop.

ETA: The Washington Post has some background on Sen. Wendy Davis.

Reader Interactions

57Comments

  2. 2.

    Yatsuno

    Time for the legal staffs to get involved. This is gonna be quite messy. But the best part is the injunction sure to be filed tomorrow morning means Goodhair can’t touch it yet.

  5. 5.

    Felinious Wench

    Holy shit, news coming out of caucus is Dewhurst said the vote was at 12:03. The bill is dead.

  9. 9.

    Peter

    Can’t they just bring it back up for another vote tomorrow? All this had bought is time.

    EDIT: Not that time isn’t something. It’s a hell of an accomplishment, actually. But as Mr. Wolf said, let’s not start sucking each other’s dicks just yet.

  12. 12.

    Keith

    @The prophet Nostradumbass: Perry’s just going to call another special session. He’s a Christian mullah at this point.
    Amazing to be longing for the days of Governer George W. Bush. Back then, he kinda really was a uniter. Perry…not so much.

  14. 14.

    Forkbeard

    Perry can call another special session. And in fact, he’ll do so. There were two important bills that were scheduled to happen after this bill, so they could blame Democrats if they didn’t pass – relating to highway funding and establishing a scholarship.

    So Perry will call another special session. And I see now that Wendy Davis’ spokesperson just officially announced that the bill has died in the senate for this special session. Woo!

  16. 16.

    Felinious Wench

    It’s official. The bill failed.

    Yes, Perry can call another special session…but if people thought THIS protest was bad, wait until they bring it up for vote again. We’ve all woken up now.

    And it is 2:20 am over here in Texas. I can finally go to sleep. ‘Night, all.

  17. 17.

    Forkbeard

    I’ve been drinking a good Texas whiskey the whole night while watching this. So glad it turn out well, but now that whiskey is about to make me pass out.

    But seriously, watching the livestream of the activists has been nothing less than inspiring. I’m going to inquire about volunteering with several causes tomorrow.

  18. 18.

    Felinious Wench

    Oh, and let’s make a list of all the news media that called it wrong or didn’t bother covering it until Twitter blew up tonight: ABC, CBS, Politico, CNN, MSNBC…pretty much no one got it right except the Austin American Statesman, who covers the Lege and knows better.

  20. 20.

    Keith

    @Felinious Wench: I haven’t seen an update with the official news of it failing yet, and I’ve checked damn near everywhere I can think of. I don’t expect the major sites to update for at least another couple of hours (CNN in maybe a day….they tend to have week-old headlines on their web site)

  21. 21.

    Felinious Wench

    @Keith: it was announced by Sen. Davis. Cecile Richards just spoke as well. I watched it live off a feed from a guy’s cell who is in the Rotunda. :)

  22. 22.

    slhanlon

    The bill did not pass tonight. It is official. Maybe not dead, but delayed and it is no longer under the radar.

  24. 24.

    Robert

    If the governor calls another special session, the whole process on this bill would have to start over again: debate, house motions, voting in the house, debate, senate motions, voting in the senate, etc.

  25. 25.

    Keith

    Still haven’t found a single news site saying the vote didn’t make it. Yes, I’m aware that Twitter is, but not a single news site or blog (TPM is like 8-5, M-F only, even with additional staff) that I have read has updated; and the TX legislature site still has the 6/25 vote date

  26. 26.

    The prophet Nostradumbass

    Something to think about: lots of states have no filibuster of any kind in their legislatures.

  28. 28.

    Villago Delenda Est

    The Texas GOP. The people Orwell was warning us about.

    Wipe them out. All of them.

  29. 29.

    Susan K of the tech support

    What an exceptional night to be watching on Twitter, on the Texastribune.org’s live YouTube coverage (nearly 200,000 people watching at the end) and, afterwards, on a Ustream channel, where Twitterer @ChristopherDiDo covered TX Rotunda action and waited for the Senators to emerge from their post-midnight yes-the-bill-did-die-a-definitive-12:03am-death victory speech.

    Historic.

  30. 30.

    Viva BrisVegas

    In politics on a different continent, there is currently a leadership spill going on in Canberra.

    Julia Gillard is being challenged for the Prime Minister’s job by ex-PM Kevin Rudd.

    Things are looking bad for Gillard, it seems very likely that there will be a new Australian PM in half an hour or so.

  31. 31.

    Patricia Kayden

    This is good news for now at least. I can’t imagine how exhausted Ms. Davis is this morning. Hope she got some sleep. This whole exercise is a case in point on how Democrats are different from Republicans. Can’t stand when people say that both parties are the same. No, they’re not. Would be nice if this ultimately hurts Republicans in Texas.

  32. 32.

    Napoleon

    If Davis is 50 and went to Harvard law I wonder if she was a classmate of Obamas?

  33. 33.

    something fabulous

    @Napoleon: Huh, wouldn’t that be interesting! But the article I just saw about her (wapo? too many links back!) made it sound like she worked her way through law school a bit later in life, so I’d guess not…

  36. 36.

    slightly_peeved

    @Viva BrisVegas:

    and.. she’s done. And according to their agreement, she’s out of politics. Meet the new PM, same as the old PM – literally :)

  37. 37.

    Linda Featheringill

    Hot damn! The good guys won one.!

    Wendy Davis is now nationally known. Ain’t life funny?

  39. 39.

    JCT

    Ahhh- I’ve been trying to watch this from Beijing, Twitter is of course, blocked here.

    Sounds like a great night – fun for me to get the heads up that this was all going on thanks to a phone call from my daughter – she was all riled up!

  40. 40.

    geg6

    Wow, I want to gay marry Wendy Davis. Awesome woman.

    Speaking of which (gay marriage, I mean), the Prop8 and DOMA decision might get interesting today. Gay rights groups have permits for demonstrations that will shut down major areas of downtown Pittsburgh today. They’re calling it Rejoice or Riot.

  41. 41.

    raven

    Mr Scarborough is asking if anyone seriously
    believes that the Southern states are really run by racists and bigots?

  43. 43.

    WereBear

    @raven: Mr Scarborough is asking if anyone seriously believes that the Southern states are really run by racists and bigots?

    He is the MASTER of rhetorical questions!

  44. 44.

    Joseph Nobles

    Perry will call another session because there were other bills to pass. Dewhurst (or whoever) scheduled them for after SB5. Numbskulls.

  45. 45.

    Geoduck

    If we’re reporting on state governments, here in Washington (state), after a newly-elected Democratic senator decided to caucus with the GOP and thus hand control of the Senate to the latter, budget negotiations have become deadlocked, and the entire state government will probably shut down.

  47. 47.

    Shalimar

    @raven: Scarborough knows Jeff Sessions personally, so I’m pretty sure he already knows the answer to that question. It isn’t no.

  48. 48.

    WereBear

    One thing the last decade has done is make me look prescient.

    When it became clear to me that 9/11 was being treated as an excuse for making Republican fever dreams come true, (and I admit I did not realize how deep the rot had gone,) I would explain that the Republican party had gone full-Wingnut. I predicted they would start turning us into a fascist state with corporate control, oppressing women and minorities, and bringing back feudalism… and I was regarded as someone with extra heads.

    I don’t look like a lunatic now, do I?

  54. 54.

    Another Halocene Human

    @Dream On: Real, existential questions like reproductive freedom and bodily autonomy wither in comparison to the thought that sometime, somewhere, somebody will be able to see the deleted posts that got you banned from SomethingAwful.

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