I Am Woman, Hear Me Talk, and Talk, and Talk, and ….
There’s good news. At 8:00 tonight, it was reported that over 400 people had signed up to speak against the bill denying safe legal abortions to Texas women.
That’s 400 times 3 minutes each. 1,200 minutes. That’ll take us down the road a piece.
Do not screw with Texas women, boyfriend. They own backhoes and high heels.
UPDATE: At 9:30, the number is 500. The citizen filibuster is working.
UPDATE: Final Count was 700. 90% of them did not get to testify because the Republican chairman shut down the hearing. Click here to read about the hearing in the Austin American Statesman.
THIS makes me happy (particularly since I couldn’t participate). Women–hear me roar!
1As I told a friend, a bunch of angry women are about to invade Austin. Sounds like they’re here.
2Are they still taking names? I may head on down, if so….
3Will those be enough women to cover the entire time you figure you need to run out the clock?
It’s a little far for me to come from Alaska, but I’ll be cheering you on every bit of the way.
4Please post the room number if you have it.
5Glad the women of Texas are roaring. Humored that the leg of Texas is getting bitten in the ass by same. Worried that most, in leg, will be too stupid to understand what these women and the men who are intelligent enough to understand want and need from the lawmakers. So, impressed with the commitment to carry on the fight for freedom and justice. Feels strange to be saying that in U.S.A. 21st century. Bumper sticker is right: Freedom is Not Free. Not the army, navy, or marines needed, just honest citizens who know that everybody counts or nobody counts. Needed this tonight. Sorry for run off of mouth.
6Terri from Redding, CA where even in a bookstore people will say, “Well, we have a Muslim president. That’s why…” So tired of this stuff.
Down at the hearing which is in the Reagan bldg at Congress and 15th. Come on down!
7If ya tweet, #DontMessWithTexasWomen on Twitter might be fun.
8You rock!
9Room full of people waiting to testify, but the hearings have been shut down. Press conference has been called. We are being prevented from testifying.
People who have driven from all over the state then and waited hours and hours are not being allowed to testify.
10It didn’t help tempers that folks weren’t called up in the order in which they’d registered. Probably 95% of the people who testified had last names that ended in A, B, C, or, D. There were a few from E, F (not mine), R, S, U (a couple who was pro-bill who told the same story 90 minutes apart), and W. As far as I can remember, last names starting with no other letters were called, and if they were, they were one-offs.
We’d had one committee member (D) tell us that it didn’t matter if we were repeating what someone else said, we deserved to be heard. Don’t think the Chair was in the room at the time. He evidentally disagreed. Sometime around midnight he announced he was closing testimony after another hour and opening it for another bill. There was almost a riot.
Troopers were moved into the room, front and back. All the R reps and some of the Ds left. We were left wondering what the status of the bill was. Rep. Jessica Farrar, whose feet I’d love to kiss, stayed put. When the masses calmed down a bit and asked her, she said that the committee members were trying to decide.
Meanwhile, the folks in the room decided to give their testimony to each other while waiting for them to return. We also figured out a few key people if they’d only let a few speak. One lovely older African-American woman stood up and pointed out that there’d been no testimony from females of her race. We had an officer (President?) of Texas NOW.
Eventually they came back. The witnesses were lined up in the aisle, and they were off. We squeezed as many in as time allotted. Then they closed the talk for HB 60 and opened it for HB 16. HB 60 was left in a Pending state.
11JJ, I don’t know if you were in one of the overflow rooms for the beginning of the HB 60 hearing. Listening to Rep Farrar gently, logically, relentlessly, thoroughly grill the bill submitter (Laubenberg?) was a thing of beauty and a joy forever. I wish Rep Farrar was MY rep (mine’s Naishtat). She appears to be everything one would want in a rep: well informed, detail oriented, thorough, and determined to stay on point when someone tries to slide away from answering her questions.
I was so sorry not to see you this afternoon/evening. Maybe next time.
I’ve so much more I’d like to say, but I got home about 3 hours after my bedtime. I need to turn out the lights.
12FYI-when I was leaving, I signed up in opposition, not testifying, against HB 16. Someone took a picture of me doing it. Apparently the sign-in system had intermittently not been allowing people to sign in throughout the evening. They wanted to document that sometimes it did work.
13Six or seven DPS troopers were sent into the hearing room to restore order. Poor guys were probably afraid they would have to physically retrain some of the women. Would have made sensational pictures. I spent 12 hours waiting to testify and did not get to speak on either bill. But I can say I was part of the Great Texas Women’s Uprising of 2013!
14I just got home. Stayed for the press conference and end of testimony. They ultimately allowed some more testimony on hb 60, then allowed some on hb 16. Many women didn’t get to speak. The people who did speak were amazing. Strange, though, that all the anti choice women spoke early and one after another, though they were not in alphabetical order. Rumor was they were bussed in together. I wouldn’t know, but it was curious.
15Hey SusanF, I tried to find you again. It was great to see you!
16Wow! You go (women) girls! Perhaps its getting to be time for a different plan for birth control, maybe small snips to male parts which do so much more damage than female ones–as soon as a young male produces a healthy sperm count, he gets stored, snipped and then restored when he turns into a responsible adult–that way we can completely avoid the 10 babies by ten different girls same father/ lack of one syndrome that is going on in local high schools around the country–since virgin births are really rare, we could also eliminate at least 30,000 babies from rape each year–that way all babies would be truly wanted! Just saying…we are 51% of the population–time to reel in the out of control nature of the male half of the populace…sperm stored for back up…
17You women who went to Austin make me so proud! You take my breath away!
18You Texas women are inspiring! You go!
19-Jenna from up north in the bluest of New England
I am so proud to be a woman in Texas today! I wish I could have been there!
20High fives to the Texas women that went to Austin. Y’all are noticed and appreciated. I live about 10 miles from your eastern border and out legislature/governor are strange too. Here’s a little present from many years ago~”I am woman, hear me roar in numbers to big to ignore”.(h/t to Helen Reddy)
21Reading Susan F’s account and the article linked by JJ made me look at the calendar to make sure it didn’t say “1968!” This has sure taken me back to my salad days.
I’m just so very, very grateful to all the women who showed and waited for hours and to the women (that includes YOU, JJ) who organized this at the last minute. I’m guessing that the sight of hundreds of angry women made some of the male “members” shrink quite a bit.
22Can’t be there, but I’m wearing my apron which says, “Don’t Mess With Texas Women”
23Even back in 1973, Texas was one of the 30 states that ratified the Equal Rights Amendment. That would not happen now!
24Well done ladies, if you have not already seen it there is an article posted in ‘Think Progress’
25Well done, Ladies. And gentlemen. Ya’ll deserve breakfast in bed served by your spouse. If that can’t happen, take the weekend off & have some sweet tea & BBQ.
Thanks for doing what needed to be done. Wish I coulda been there wit youse guys.
26So what happens now? Do the women who weren’t able to speak get another opportunity today?
You guys are awesome!!!!!
27Somewhere, Molly Ivins is having a big ol’ belly laugh, bless her heart–and all of yours.
28Call your representative Ask her/him to call point of order on bill as it did not receive a full legal hearing
29Rachel Maddow is looking at this tonight:
http://maddowblog.msnbc.com/_news/2013/06/21/19076693-texas-republicans-meet-the-citizens-filibuster-and-update-schedule-new-abortion-vote-anyway
30