Posted by Jack at 11:52am Jun 26 '13it was incredible. After Davis got shut down, three other Democrat senators essentially "filibustered" for another hour or so by arguing and asking questions (some stupid and some relevant).
When it looks like it's all over but the voting, at 11:45pm, a female D Senator (name escapes me) essentially asked "how loud does a female senator have to speak to be heard over her male peers?" (Supposedly the Speaker passed her over when she moved to adjourn in favor of a male R senator)
Then the crowd ERUPTED. They screamed and clapped and jeered and cheered so loud nobody could hear anything, for a good 20 minutes or so.
It was incredible.
Right around midnight the Repubs tried to hustle the vote at the last second, but it didn't get passed until 12:02AM (after the special session was over, making the vote not count).
After attempting to say the vote got in before midnight and then tampering with the voting record (and getting caught), Repubs (Lt. Gov Dewhurst - R) finally conceded defeat at like 3am.
Since then, the protestors have been called all sorts of names by the Repub senators - "terrorists" among other things, lol - and Gov Perry referred to them as an "unruly mob". The protestors and Dems referred to is as a "People's filibuster".
The shame of it is, this law will get passed soon anyway. Gov Perry can call another special session almost immediately, and you can be sure the Repubs won't let something like that happen again.
Big kudos to the heroic actions of Sen Davis. I can't imagine having to stand unsupported, speaking ON-TOPIC without stopping for 11 hours. It's crazy.
This was the most exciting Texas Senate session... ever. Hah.
At one point there were nearly 200,000 people watching the live stream. 200,000 people watching a Texas state Senate hearing. It was nuts.
For a while I seriously thought there was going to be a riot when Texas state troopers started arresting protesters.
I was watching live - Jack