The 82nd legislative session ended today and a special session begins in less than 24 hours sparked by a filibuster from state Sen. Wendy Davis.
The Fort Worth Democrat successfully killed a bill Sunday night that included school finance provisions that needed to pass in order to properly balance the budget.
Davis spent much of today getting praised by Democrats and ridiculed by Republicans.
"In a way, the filibuster is a gift to the governor," state Sen. Steve Ogden, R-Bryan, said.
Ogden predicted that not only would the budget pass in the special session, but Gov. Rick Perry would successfully pass other Republican pet issues that were derailed during the regular session. Unlike during a regular session when the 12 Democratic Senators can block most bills from coming up for a vote, only a majority Senate vote is needed during a special session, making it more likely that measures Democrats hate will advance.
Davis acknowledged Tuesday that the budget may pass unchanged and that other issues she opposes may now become law.
"I think what’s worth it, even in that instance, is that the people of Texas know that we stood and we tried and that’s the most we can do," Davis said.
Senate Democrats had debated for hours over whether one of their own should filibuster Sunday night. Davis said she felt inspired to step up in part because of the pluckiness of House Democrats throughout the session.
"With only 49 of them, they know that there’s little that they can do and yet they have stood and fought for the people that they represent like champions," Davis said. "They don’t have the tools we have over here on the Senate side…I really felt a duty honestly to them to honor the work that they’ve been doing by making sure we were using the tools available to us to do what we could on this side.”
-Aman Batheja
Davis is a moron. What a gift she handed the repubs.
Posted by: biffula | May 30, 2011 at 10:27 PM
Sen. Davis may say 'we stood and that's the most we could do' and it may pass anyway' but in addtion to the items the senators can no longer block, then they can in fact make make it worse for low Target Revenue schools as a payback due to lower vote majority in special session. So that ploy only has a limited amount of spark and very bad consequences.
Posted by: Joee Gainer | May 31, 2011 at 11:37 AM