Only hours after a legislative session that ended in near anarchy Texas Governor Rick Perry has decided to call legislators back for a second special session aimed at passing an abortion bill as well as tending to matters involving transportation and juvenile justice, according to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.
Democrats in the Texas legislature were attempting to block the passage of an abortion bill that would ban abortions 20 weeks after conception, four weeks earlier than the majority of abortion laws in the country. For 11 hours Sen. Wendy Davis filibustered before she made a third violation and the filibuster was ended two hours before a midnight deadline ended the special session. Following the filibuster legislators argued as to what would happen next as protesters within the chamber screamed and yelled, a vote on the abortion bill was taken either just at midnight or just after depending on the source and it was not able to be signed into law, according to The New York Times.
"We will not allow the breakdown of decorum and decency to prevent us from doing what the people of this state hired us to do," Perry said.
Democrats knew that their victory in the early hours of Wednesday would most likely be short-lived in the Republican leaning state and were preparing for the next potential legislative battle.
"They may roll over us. They probably will," Davis told the Dallas Morning News. "But they underestimate the consequences of doing so. Obviously, we're still going to fight with every fiber that we have."
In the battle to defeat the abortion bill two other bills were unable to come up to a vote; a transportation bill that would allow the state to use oil revenue to pay for road construction and a criminal justice bill that would address constitutional issues that attorneys say are blocking the state from prosecuting 17-year-olds in capital cases, according to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.
'If leaders are serious about using this second called special session to improve the lives of Texans by repairing and expanding out transportation networks, they will find no greater ally than me," Davis told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. "If they intend to keep pushing their extreme personal political agenda ahead of the interests of Texas families, I will not back off of my duty to fight on their behalf."
Democrats in the legislature, including Davis, have argued that they were prepared to pass the two bills quickly and easily. Democrats have argued that the lieutenant governor, David Dewhurst, placed the two unrelated bills behind the abortion bill in an effort to maximize the amount of time that Davis would have to spend on her feet if the Democrats attempted a filibuster, reports the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.
"We Democrats stood ready to vote favorably on those bills at the start of the day," Davis said. "We had communicated that message to the lieutenant governor and expected that they would be the first two that would be called so we could at least assure....the passage of those bills behind what we know would be a filibuster day."
Gov. Perry, who many think will make a decision about running for reelection in the coming days, was firm in his intentions when calling for a second special session.
"Through their duly elected representatives, the citizens of our state have made crystal clear their priorities for our great state," Perry said. "Texans value life and want to protect women and the unborn. Texans want a transportation system that keeps them moving. Texans want a court system that is fair and just."
