It all comes down to this. For real this time. The Senate is just about to begin final consideration of HB 2 which, in case you haven’t been paying attention, would ban abortion after 20 weeks, require abortion clinics to meet the same standards as ambulatory surgical centers, and make…
The abortion debate is a Gordian knot wrapped in a koan stuck in an inescapable quagmire. It’s not, in other words, a matter that can be settled through dialogue, reasoned or otherwise, as the Texas Legislature has so amply proved over the past month. That hasn’t stopped people from trying…
As expected, the Texas House passed new, restrictive abortion restrictions this afternoon, sending them on to the Senate for final approval, but not before Democrats could launch a statewide bus tour, and not before this pro-choice protester could scream at lawmakers from the gallery. Unlike the clamor that arose after…
The Texas House just passed sweeping abortion restrictions. Once they pass the senate, the procedure will be banned 20 weeks post-fertilization, and all but five abortion providers in the state will be forced to close thanks to a medically unnecessary requirement that they meet the standards of ambulatory surgical centers…
Per the rules of the Texas legislature’s special session, Governor Rick Perry can add any agenda items that he thinks need to be addressed, with abortion taking a pretty comfortable lead over anything else. Otherwise, any bills the legislators file right now are in free-floating purgatory. In a show of…
It’s like listening to Bon Iver, but with slightly more uterus references…
Rick Perry will not seek a fourth term as Texas governor, he announced this afternoon. He will spend the next 18 months “working to create more jobs” and will “pray and reflect and work to determine my own future path,” he said. He did not rule out another run for…
Watch the latest video at video.foxnews.com Later today, Governor Rick Perry will take the stage in San Antonio and tell the world of his future plans, while cable-news producers “real” and “fake” wait with bated office-coffee breath. The Morning News on Sunday laid out the pros and cons of three…
The Koch Bros might be emptying their change purses in order to keep Texas from tinting blue, but the state is in no danger of becoming a real battleground, new polling suggests. Also: People continue to think in large numbers that other states should not mess with Texas. Also: That’s…
Back in February, when the Texas legislature was in session the first time, Representative Lon Burnam, D-Fort Worth, authored a bill aimed to authorize “a marriage between two persons of the same sex in this state and repealing the statutory prohibition against the recognition of a civil union or similar…
Senator Wendy Davis stood beneath the dome for 11 hours in Mizuno sneakers (and, quite possibly, adult diapers) filibustering abortion legislation that could have shuttered all but a handful of providers. At one point nearly 200,000 tuned into watch, until three rather sketchy points of order brought brought her marathon…
It’s a science, folks: State Senator Wendy Davis is way more attractive than the rest of her colleagues in the Legislature, with the possible exception of Wayne Smith. Capitol watchers have known this for years, but it wasn’t until the rest of America set its eyes upon Davis’ filibuster that…
From a purely tactical standpoint, Democrats maintained momentum during this summer’s abortion debate. The impassioned testimony delivered by hundreds of pro-choice women into the wee hours of the morning, Senator Wendy Davis standing for 11 hours to deliver an epic filibuster, the party’s David vs. Goliath victory — all stand…
The narrative that’s emerged on the right in the wake of the defeat of sweeping anti-abortion legislation this week isn’t that Senator Wendy Davis jiu jitsued a victory with a Frank Capra-worthy filibuster. Rather, it’s that the democratic process was hijacked by an unruly mob of out-of-state agitators whose cacophonous…
Now that the euphoria that followed Wendy Davis’ Senate filibuster two nights ago has faded, Democrats are back to facing the likelihood that the Republicans’ death grip on state government isn’t going to loosen easily or soon. As the Texas Tribune’s Jay Root explains, Republicans embarrassed themselves, but Governor Rick…
There was going to be a rally last night one way or the other. Local activists had scheduled the Dallas Day of Decision Rally for 7 p.m. of whatever day the Supreme Court issued its ruling on Proposition 8 and the Defense of Marriage Act, and depending on how those…
There are many layers of absurdity that surround the abortion debate at the state Capitol over the past several days. There was state Representative Jodie Laubenberg’s claim that rape kits clean out pregnancy and Republican senators’ flimsy rationale for ending Wendy Davis’ epic filibuster. There was the deafening, 15-minute roar…
The dust still hadn’t settled on the Supreme Court’s decision to strike down a key part of the Voting Rights Act when Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott dispatched a press release announcing that the state’s voter ID law, which the courts had up put on hold, would “take effect immediately.”…
Max Kalhammer seems like he was a much chattier guy when he first arrived at City Hall in 2009 as the city’s first-ever bike coordinator who didn’t think cyclists should be forced to fight traffic. He talked frequently with the media and worked closely with advocacy groups like Bike Friendly…
Last night, Senator Wendy Davis’ epic filibuster against an antediluvian piece of abortion legislation was ended because Roe v. Wade apparently isn’t “germane.” So, the “unruly mob” up in the gallery finished the job for her. The votes could not be counted in the din before the special session ended…
Even before Fort Worth Democrat Wendy Davis took the Senate floor late Tuesday morning and launched into the filibuster that would ultimately grab the nation’s attention and kill attempts to railroad abortion restrictions through the state Legislature, she was at the top of Texas Republicans’ hit list. Davis, they realized,…
The version of sex ed taught to Dallas ISD students, which is representative of what’s on offer elsewhere in Texas, is completely absurd. It’s tough to reach any other conclusion when the curriculum compares premarital sex to a frog slowly boiling alive in a pot of water and likens condom…
