It can be argued that the Texas state legislature does not represent the people, as they themselves get to draw the district lines that keep them in power. With a strategically sound gerrymander, it is extremely difficult to change the legislature. Similar tactics have given Republicans entrenched advantages even in states that went for Obama (Democrats do the same, but they have this entrenched power in far fewer states).
If you consider gerrymandering to already be a broken system that silences the voice of the people, then shouting down a vote for 10 minutes (a vote which they can do again soon after) is nothing in comparison.
As bad as gerrymandering already is, the VRA is the one thing that has held it to even these already ridiculous levels. I shudder to think what will happen next.
If I understand you, then, Perry didn’t do anything without precedence. This, to me, tips the scales away from the mob.
I find gerrymandering generally odious but it is still a step above mob rule. If it had been the knuckle-dragging Westboro group that used shouting to prevent a bill from passing we’d be picking up the virtual torches and pitch-forks, and rightly so.
Of course, the use of the filibuster in the US Senate wasn’t historically to require a 60-vote super majority to get any sort of bill passed at all, either, but here we are.
When a bill is massively 80% unpopular with the people you putatively represent, I have fewer problems with public demonstrations in the legislative buildings to voice that discontent. The current Tea Party dominated legislature was elected on a platform of better representing the people of Texas than the old crowd, and I hope they bloody well back their own fucking words up.
ETA: Historically, special sessions have been used to wrap up unfinished business or for emergencies when there is no upcoming session. That is, if there’s a lot of legislation left unconsidered or the state budget hasn’t been passed, they stay and get it done. It’s unusual, bordering on unprecedented, to call them more or less for single issues (though there are technically a couple other issues on the agenda, this one issue is clearly the big one).
When the senator who was filbustering was required to stop, why didn’t another senator then start their own filibuster?
Is there some rule in the Texas Senate that only one senator can speak on a bill? Did nobody else want to stop the bill that bad?
Certainly in the US Senate, if one senator runs out of steam, another can rise and start talking for as long as they like (unless cloture has been invoked).
I don’t get it. Honestly. For the past 15 years, Republicans have been given carte blanche to “tweak” or “break” the rules at every opportunity - gerrymandering, questionable legislative tactics, backroom deals, voter suppression, all the crazy shit I witnessed last night - which, in total, suggests they are not governing in the good faith of the people. Like SB5, where 80% of the state does not want it to pass yet the gerrymandered Republicans used every trick in the book, from the outset - the Lt Gov broke tradition and went away from the 2/3rds rule at the start of the session - to ram it through. They even exploited the death of a senator’s father to try and pass it as fast as possible.
What are we supposed to do? They don’t represent us, they don’t listen to us, they are only in it for themselves, they make the rules, they draw up the districts to stay in power - what the hell else can we do but scream? It’s poetic justice that screaming prevented it from passing, but if it didn’t, what then? Courts? Lawsuits? That could take forever, while actual, real women suffer.
And we get called an angry mob. I get it, I don’t like it either - I wish it hadn’t come to that. But how are we less right then Republicans? Anytime a Democrat/progressive/liberal/non-Republican exploits a loophole in the broken system, it’s a sign of the end of democracy, tyranny of the majority, an omen of “what’s to come”, yet when a Republican exploits 1,000 loopholes in the worst interest of the people it’s either silence or “what do you expect? they did something worse last week!”
I realize it is impossible to prove “if this and that had happened, I would have done that and this” but… I wouldn’t do as you say.
I mean, I would be picking up the virtual torches against the harmful intent of a group I believed had harmful intentions, but in terms of the process itself I would not place the blame on them for “mob rule.” I would still place it on the politicians.
There is already a countermeasure to this so-called “mob rule.” It’s called law enforcement clearing the room. Which they did: the “ruling mob” was cleared out very quickly. The only reason they had any effect was that the politicians created a situation where they didn’t start trying to vote until 10 minutes left in a month long session.
Being able to delay a vote for 10 minutes while being easily cleared from the room by law enforcement is not the kind of thing that makes me think “my god, the people are too powerful!” If I wanted the law passed, I would be blaming the politicians who delayed it the other 43190 minutes.
Maybe you missed the bit where Dewhurst, Lieutenant Governor and hardly disinterested president of the Senate, ruled that talking about Roe v. Wade and legally-required sonograms were not germane to discussing Senate Bill 5.
Maybe you also missed where he couldn’t end the filibuster based on questions of germaneness because another senator put a back brace on her. If you weren’t there and weren’t watching, you probably missed the arguments of Senators Ellis and Lucio (and Lucio is pro-life) explaining the precedent for these actions – other senators have, in small ways like that, assisted the filibustering senator within the rules. Even if the senator was an opponent.
But if you missed the illegal actions taken by Robert Duncan as he presided over the Senate – the refusal to recognize Senator Van de Putte, the refusal to accept rising points of order to adjourn – then you missed the reason we erupted.
Myself? I was silent from 9:30 when I entered the gallery on to 10:30 when they removed even orderly people in the gallery. We shushed each other, not wanting to be ejected from the building. But when we discovered the blatantly and repeatedly illegal calls in the Senate chambers?
I want to point out that Deeg said “mob rule.” I said “shouted down”.
There are several issues to balance here. We want the sheep to have a voice when the wolves are voting. Most people – myself not excluded – don’t find it practical to become sufficiently well-informed to legislate. Constitutional and other protections are needed to rein in momentary passions. But, for the reasons DoctorJ mentioned (and U.S. Senate Republicans have demonstrated), mechanisms of passing legislation other than a vote to determine whether more people/representatives support or oppose it need to be carefully regulated and can’t be easy.
Again, I heartily approve of the outcome, I just have reservations about the route to get there.
Vote against them. If they’re routinely passing legislation that 80% of the population doesn’t like, they won’t stay in office for long. Primary them. Fund their opponents. If you’re in the legislature, do what that woman did and filibuster your ass off.
And ultimately, realize sometimes you’re going to lose. That’s the way of the legislative process. Sometimes bills get passed you don’t like. Sometimes bills you desperately want to pass fail. And then, yeah, courts and lawsuits if you have a case. And sometimes even then you fail, and you lick your wounds and work out strategy and try again next time. And, maybe it’ll be as you say, and people will suffer while it works its way through the court. (and your opponents would say that people are going to suffer if the law doesn’t pass). And in that case, they suffer, and you feel bad, and it does very much suck. But it’s better they suffer than the law is ignored. Because once you start doing that; once you start saying this issue or that issue is so important that it takes precedence over the law, then you open it up so that anyone can do that, and the whole legal system becomes a nullity, and just becomes a way for peopleto abuse or ignore to get their results, even when those results aren’t as noble as yours. So do everything you can within the law, but don’t step outside it. Because the law is what protects us.
I don’t see how they “stepped outside the law”. Is there a specific volume level below which observers must remain while in the chambers of the Texas legislature?
Why are the people who keep going on about how the protestors are awful outright refusing to acknowledge the republicans in the senate broke all sorts of rules, and even altered time stamps after the fact to make an illegal vote look like it was legal ? Why aren’t the elected officials being held to, oh, any standards at all?
Oh, right, they’re republicans, so when they break the law for the purpose of harming others, it’s a good thing to those people. Right.
“It’s better that you suffer than the law is ignored” ?
Then why didn’t the republicans just suffer? Why do they get to lie, and cheat, and make up new rules and outright ignore it when they’re called on it?
Ah, right. When you talk about it being “better” that people suffer, you only mean it’s better that it’s women who suffer.
I think the Republican leadership stepped outside the law far more egregiously than anyone sitting in the chamber did. “Ultimately, realize that sometimes you’re going to lose” is a message that I think those guys need to hear and understand. You know, instead of, “Well, if it looks like you might lose, then start bending or even breaking the rules in order to make sure that you DON’T lose, because that’s more important than the democratic process we’ve all previously agreed on.”
I keep reading that figure about how 80% of Texans opposed the bill. Did I miss the citation? Let me rush to assure that by no means do I imply a lack of faith in the honesty of the posts, its just that number astonishes me. If I had had to guess, I would have been downright tickled to hear it was as much as 51%.
Make my day, show me the numbers. A cite for sore eyes, so to speak.
Yes, a Fuck you, Texas Republicans topic gets confusing quickly. Exactly which atrocity that happened here in the last 24 hours *are *you discussing?
We could definitely use a* Stupid Texas Republican Trick Of The Day* topic. But too much of that stuff can be a real downer Like Townes’s description of one of his more depressing tunes: “this is a song about living in Beaumont & commuting to Pasadena.”
At least my state rep & senator are both Democrats. Thanks to the Dopers who made it to the Capitol yesterday…
To be clear, Texans favor some restrictions on abortion. That is beyond question. And anybody who says otherwise is smoking something.
But 80% didn’t want Rick Perry to call a special session this time on abortion. Further 63% think there are already sufficient restrictions in place, and 70% think the state government should be more focused on the economy and jobs.
Those are solid majorities in any case. It’s political theater to make it a hot button topic in Texas. Politicians thinking they can easily pump up their conservative cred at taxpayer expense.
If you’re a politician that’s regularly voting for things opposed by 80% of your constituents, you can’t gerrymander enough to win. If this bill is really that unpopular, it’s political suicide to vote for it. I mean, gay marriage has more support in Texas than that.
