State Senator Davis filibuster buster derailed early, but parliamentary procedures and roaring crowd kept Senate from completing a roll call vote before midnight killing the SB abortion bill.
By H. Nelson Goodson
June 26, 2013
Dallas, Texas - On late Tuesday, the Senate roll call vote passed midnight to three minutes into Wednesday killing Texas SB 5 abortion bill that prevented abortions after 20 weeks and closed most abortion clinics in the state. The controversial bill drew major protests from crowds outside the Senate chamber on Tuesday. The highlight of the night was the historical one-woman filibuster attempt by Senator Wendy R. Davis (D) who went for 10 hours straight, then in a surpised move the Republican Senate leadership stopped her and alleged that she went off her subject thus ending her time from the 13-hours needed to close the session. Democrats came to Davis defense and agrued she was not given the three required warnings about going off the subject. Davis should be allowed to continue to speak, but both the Democrats and the majority of Republican Senators argued for the next three hours about parliamentary procedures. Then just before midnight, Senator Leticia Van De Putte (D) asked the Senate Republicans, if they were refusing Senator Davis to speak because she was a woman? The crowd outside the Senate chamber broke into an uproar frenzy and the Senators could not hear the roll call prolonging the vote into three minutes past midnight and automatically killing the bill for the session.
Senator Davis exited the chamber and told the crowd outside that the bill was dead, which caused another outburst of cheering Texans.
SB 5 was considered one of the strictest abortion bills in the nation, but for now it has been killed.
