AUSTIN, TX, July 2, 2013 (LifeSiteNews) – A spokesman for Texas State Senator Wendy Davis says the Fort Worth Democrat will not attempt a second time to filibuster a late-term abortion ban being debated during this month’s special legislative session.
“You can't have a 30-day filibuster,” Davis spokesman Rick Svatora told U.S. News and World Report. “The point is that they mismanaged things so badly the first time around it allowed a filibuster to occur. The Lt. Governor has pledged he won't allow that to happen this time around.”
Last week, Davis made national headlines by blocking the legislation, which would ban most abortions after 20 weeks and force abortion facilities to meet the same health and safety standards as other outpatient surgical centers.
The bill had already passed the House and would have easily passed the Senate, but because it didn’t come to a vote until the final day of the June special session, Davis was able to run out the clock with a marathon filibuster. Initially news reports had said that the bill had passed in a last minute vote, after Republicans successfully ended her filibuster shortly before midnight. However, it was subsequently discovered that the vote had taken place several minutes after midnight, after shouting pro-abortion protesters delayed the vote.
Now, Republican Governor Rick Perry has called another special session in order to pass the abortion restrictions, and Lt. Governor David Dewhurst has vowed, “We will pass this bill out of the legislature.”
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Senator Dan Patrick (R-Houston) told KTRK News that he’ll do whatever is necessary to prevent another filibuster. “We need to be methodical,” said Patrick. “We have the votes and we just need to do our work. The House has filed a bill, the Senate has filed a bill. Not sure which will move forward.”
Patrick has also re-filed a bill placing additional safety restrictions on the use of abortion drug RU-486.
The legislature has less than a month to move the bills out of committee and secure floor votes in both houses. In the meantime, both pro-life and pro-abortion activists have already all but set up camp at the Capitol, with pro-lifers dressed in blue and abortion supporters wearing orange.
“The world has seen images of pro-abortion activists screaming, cheering,” Republican Gov. Rick Perry told U.S. News and World Report. “Going forward, we have to match their intensity but do it with grace and civility.”
At the National Right to Life Convention last Thursday, Gov. Perry said the events at the Texas capitol on Tuesday were “nothing more than the hijacking of the democratic process.”
“This is simply too important of a cause to allow the unruly actions of a few to stand in its way,” he said. “And that's the reason that I am calling lawmakers back to Austin, Texas to finish their business. And I put pro-life measures at the top of that call list.”