It's a good day to be a social liberal

[melaniesuzanne]

I stayed up waaaaay too late for a school night watch the live stream of last night's special session and Senator Wendy Davis' filibuster of such in the Texas senate. My Facebook and Twitter pages were ON FIRE as we all watched with goosebumps and hearts in our throats while Senators Ellis, Van de Putte, Watson, West, and Zaffirini attempted to run down the clock with points of order and parliamentary questions. "Robert's Rules" trended on Twitter. HA! And then the gallery took up the gauntlet during the last fifteen minutes, cheering and chanting and disrupting the proceedings so that a vote could not be taken before midnight. The Lt Governor DID hold a vote and noted the passage of SB 5 at 12:02 CDT which was against the rules of the Senate body which caused an eruption of jeers from the gallery and flailing by the Democratic senators. Nobody in the chamber was micced at that point and the cheering and chanting from OUTSIDE THE CAPITOL was audible on the live stream. I finally shut down my computer at 1:30 EDT and slunk to bed feeling the crushing defeat for Texas pro-choicers and hoping that the lawsuit against the unconstitutional nature of that post-session vote would arise by morning.

Imagine my delight this morning when I learned that the vote was stricken. Of course, that legislature (and many others) will try again to remove women's rights over their own bodies and I hope and pray that more legislators will channel Senator Davis' conviction, determination, and endurance.

In SCOTUS news, while only parts of DOMA is dead, it's a step in the right direction. And California's hateful Prop 8 is back in the land of lower federal courts. “We have never before upheld the standing of a private party to defend a state statute when state officials have chosen not to,” said Chief Justice John Roberts.

It's a start.

I'm still wrapping my head around yesterday's ruling on voting rights. On the one hand, it may have crippled civil rights. On the other, ALL STATES are subject to changes not just the Jim Crow states. Like I said, still wrapping.

Comments

[shalandara.livejournal.com]

I have a minor problem with the public interfering and creating such a noise that it interrupted the process. Not because I disagree with their message (I don't -- I wanted the bill to fail), but because it subverts the process. Plus, it gives the other side the precedent to do the same thing when something they don't like is on the floor for a vote.

Like I said, a minor quibble.

The voting rights thing is tricky. By using outdated standards it was rife with issues. Not to mention the whole only some parts of the country had to do this and others (which are just as likely to be discriminatory) did not. I do not like the whole idea of putting the burden of proof ont he voters to prove that they are being discriminated against. The average person cannot prove that. The burden should be on the state to prove that they are not being discriminatory.

DOMA was a mistake to begin with. But dealing with the issues of where the marriage was celebrated vs. where people are living will be interesting. There is already a disconnect between Defense Dept (where celebrated makes it valid) vs. Veteran's affairs (where residing makes it legal). So you retire out of the military and then can get caught in a problem depending upon where you live.