Democrats Plan to Kill Texas Abortion Bill With 13-Hour Filibuster

[Coyotl]

82. GREAT READ = Texas Monthly: A Bill is Killed; A Star is Born

http://www.texasmonthly.com/story/bill-killed-star-born

A Bill is Killed; A Star is Born

With all the strange and incredible things that happened in the Texas Capitol yesterday, there’s one point that’s gone almost unnoticed.

It was the biggest day for Texas Democrats in a generation–people did notice that part–and it could easily have never happened.

Within the past 24 hours or so, the state’s pending abortion bill, which supporters and opponents agreed would severely restrict access to abortion services in Texas, was killed—at least for now. The entire Texas Democratic Party has apparently been reanimated. In the early hours of Wednesday morning, as senators tried to figure out what they had just done—seriously—there were still hundreds of activists packed in the capitol, singing and cheering and, probably, pinching themselves.

And Texas’s long-suffering Democrats should be excited, because for the first time in years they appear to have a realistic shot at winning a statewide executive office in 2014. Wendy Davis , the Democratic state senator from Fort Worth, vaulted to national attention yesterday ....