Buster and bluster

It was a historic moment on the floor of the Texas Senate this week as Sen. Wendy Davis filibustered (prolonged speechmaking for the purpose of delaying legislative action) to stop SB 5 which would have radically altered access to abortion.  The proposal would have banned most abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy and required abortion facilities to meet the standards of an ambulatory surgical center.  Having passed in the Texas House earlier in the week, it looked almost certain that 37 of the state’s 42 facilities providing abortions, including many operated by Planned Parenthood would be closing.

That is until Senator Davis tried talking the bill to death and a broad coalition of grass-roots groups (organizations which rely on activist citizen participation) eventually yelled the bill to death.   A number of liberal organizations came together Tuesday night to create such a racket in the Texas Senate chamber that the bill could not be properly voted on.

Senator Davis had been successful in her filibuster until Republicans successfully employed parliamentary maneuvers to end it. At that point, groups supporting pro-choice advocates including local Occupy movement groups, the International Socialist Organization, and GetEqual Texas, a gay rights group had members at the protest began chanting so loudly that business could not be conducted on the Senate floor. Finally at 12:03 a.m. (the special session ended at midnight), the vote was finally taken, but it was too late.

There was a bit of confusion when it was reported that the legislation had actually passed in time to meet the deadline, but Republicans had to recant later when it was discovered that the date time stamp had been changed.  After a meeting that lasted until 3 am, the bill was officially declared dead on arrival.

Another law that was killed this week was section 4 of the Voting Rights Act (1965) which mandates preclearance for all states which are required to comply because they have a past history of discrimination. As a result of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision this week in two Texas cases, one involving voter identification laws, and the other involving a 3 three judge federal court which had invalidated a Texas redistricting map, the High Court held that states need no longer be automatically subject to the preclearance process.

That means that the two lower federal court decisions in those cases must now be reconsidered in light of the Supreme Court’s rulings to determine whether their initial decision should stand, or be busted.