Two male Republicans came this close to getting into a fist fight on the Texas House floor over an abortion bill.  If the sergeant at arms staff hadn’t stop it, Republicans Rep. Jonathan Stickland and Republican Rep. Byron Cook could have sold pay-per-view tickets.

On an abortion bill.  Two males.  Doesn’t that seem odd to anybody?

Here’s what the fight was about:

SB575 is a bill about “elective” abortions.  It would require women who want to be covered for abortions under their health insurance to purchase supplemental plans.  It didn’t look like it was going to get out of committee.

Jonathan Stickland, who is one kinky guy, decided to add an amendment on some other bill about roads or some damn thing.  His amendment would force a house vote on an amendment “to prohibit abortions on the basis of fetal abnormalities.”

Yeah, that’s some crap.  A woman would be required to carry a non-viable fetus until it died and was expelled from her body naturally.  Yeah, that crap.  The crap that kills women.

So anyway, Stickland agreed to pull the amendment in exchange for a promise from the Republican leadership that SB575 would get reported out of committee.

Although Cook kept his word, three Republican women on the Calendars Committee — Reps. Sarah Davis, Debbie Riddle and Patricia Harless — backed out of supporting the bill at the last minute and sided with the Democrats, killing the measure with a 7-7 vote.

Strickland got screwed by Republican women.  But you can’t hit women so he decided to hit Cook instead.

The result?

But in the end, Stickland’s temper tantrum worked.

The Calendars Committee reconvened after the House session and voted to move SB575 forward by a vote of 8-0. Two Republicans and all of the Democrats were marked as absent. Republican Rep. Debbie Riddle swung her vote in support of the bill, but it was not immediately clear why she had changed her mind.

Debbie Riddle is kinda nuts.  You’ve read about her here before.  You can call her office and fuss up a storm about her caving to a temper tantrum worthy of a two year old.   281-257-4222 .  Be nice.  Don’t cuss.  But don’t back down.