At some point a week ago, a show became a spectacle.
Sen. Wendy Davis, a Democrat from Fort Worth, Texas, attempted a filibuster during the last day of a special session in order to defeat an abortion bill from being voted upon.
Governor Rick Perry had already publicly vowed to sign the bill if it passed the Senate. Eleven hours in, she was quieted on a third point of order, which was the second point of order on germaneness.
In the U.S. Senate, senators can vary from topic to topic during a filibuster, so long as they keep talking; in the Texas Senate, everything must be on the topic being filibustered. That second point on germaneness — defined as “closely or significantly related” by www.dictionary.com — was due to Davis talking about how a law from the previous Senate session had already placed restrictions on abortions. It was a questionable decision at best, and it fired up people watching both inside and outside the building.
Despite Davis being quieted, she remained standing on the floor while other senators took up the cause. One of those senators was Leticia Van de Putte. She was late to the day’s meeting, as she had attended the funeral of her father.
Van de Putte had made a motion to adjourn the senate, which in the Texas Senate is supposed to take priority over other motions. Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst did not recognize her motion, though it is unknown as to whether he did so intentionally.
As the clock neared midnight central time, Van de Putte stood calmly as she had the floor, releasing one of the best quotes from the night:
“At what point must a female senator raise her hand or her voice to be recognized over the male colleagues in the room?”
After she said this, the crowd watching went wild for almost 15 minutes, preventing a vote from being effectively taken. Dewhurst tried, and an attempt at a vote was recorded. It was in vain, as the clock had passed midnight.
Or had it?
The website of the Texas Senate, although initially saying the vote had been taken after midnight, had been changed some time after midnight to say the vote had been taken before, according to a screenshot on Twitter posted by @MatthewKeysLive. This was in contrast to the thousands of people who watched the Senate fail to complete a vote before the session “ended.” At 12:48 a.m. central time, Mike Ward, a state politics reporter and blogger for the Austin American-Statesman specializing in the Texas Senate, reported on Twitter that the Senate was still in session.
Later that morning, Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst announced the bill had died.
About 180,000 people watched a stream of the Senate on Youtube. Twitter and Tumblr were far more concerned with the proceedings than traditional broadcast media outlets were.
Multiple times I checked NBC, ABC, CBS, CNN, MSNBC, C-SPAN, CNBC, HLN, a local news station and even Fox News for anything. There was almost nothing on this, on Senators Davis and Van de Putte. I heard about this on Tumblr. I had to download an outdated program from an outdated website to watch this for six hours.
This was incredibly compelling for every side of the debate. We had heroes and villains made before our eyes. That it was not broadcast to a larger audience is sickening.
At the same time, some of this was really amazing. I was able to interact with many people, those my age and those younger and older, via the streams and chat rooms. Tuesday, regardless of the initial result, was inspiring.
Davis and Van de Putte became Internet sensations, but they transcended that. In the eyes of many, they are what a true politician should be in the most ideal of senses: a conduit through which people may funnel their voices so they may be heard by a government that would blatantly try to silence them.
Logan Ladnyk is a UF journalism junior. His columns appear Tuesdays.
