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A Dramatic 24 Hours in American Politics
Jun. 26th, 2013 09:09 am
So the Supreme Court struck down DOMA, as expected. Good news for the couples in states where gay marriage is legal - now the federal government can't pretend their marriages aren't real.
Something of a sneaky move by the Supreme Court on Prop 8 - they managed to leave the California court's ruling that Prop 8 is unconstitutional to stand, thereby killing off Prop 8, without setting a precedent that would mean no state can ban gay marriage. I find it a little odd that they even took the Prop 8 case in the first place - their conclusion that private citizens don't have the right to defend a law that the government won't support was equally valid months ago.
And then, of course, there was the dedicated Wendy Davis, with her nearly 11 hour filibuster in the Texas State Legislature yesterday, and the equally determined crowd of her supporters who managed to stop the bill when her filibuster was halted. The bill would effectively have made it impossible to get an abortion in Texas outside major urban areas - unreasonable demands placed on abortion clinics would have forced most of them to close. When Davis' filibuster was ended and it looked as if the bill might pass, the public gallery took over from her and created a fifteen minute wall of cheering and clapping that stopped the vote from being held. The live stream at that point was pretty awesome, with utter chaos in the Capitol.
After the midnight deadline, when the crowd went quiet, the Senate vote was held, and the timestamp on the official records was altered to make it look like the vote was held before midnight. At least the lieutenant governor, who personally supported the bill, was honest about it, and admitted that the bill was out of time.
So, democracy vs democracy - the elected representatives voted one way, and their constituents turned out in person to say, 'Hey, this isn't what we wanted you to legislate.' Good for them.
Something of a sneaky move by the Supreme Court on Prop 8 - they managed to leave the California court's ruling that Prop 8 is unconstitutional to stand, thereby killing off Prop 8, without setting a precedent that would mean no state can ban gay marriage. I find it a little odd that they even took the Prop 8 case in the first place - their conclusion that private citizens don't have the right to defend a law that the government won't support was equally valid months ago.
And then, of course, there was the dedicated Wendy Davis, with her nearly 11 hour filibuster in the Texas State Legislature yesterday, and the equally determined crowd of her supporters who managed to stop the bill when her filibuster was halted. The bill would effectively have made it impossible to get an abortion in Texas outside major urban areas - unreasonable demands placed on abortion clinics would have forced most of them to close. When Davis' filibuster was ended and it looked as if the bill might pass, the public gallery took over from her and created a fifteen minute wall of cheering and clapping that stopped the vote from being held. The live stream at that point was pretty awesome, with utter chaos in the Capitol.
After the midnight deadline, when the crowd went quiet, the Senate vote was held, and the timestamp on the official records was altered to make it look like the vote was held before midnight. At least the lieutenant governor, who personally supported the bill, was honest about it, and admitted that the bill was out of time.
So, democracy vs democracy - the elected representatives voted one way, and their constituents turned out in person to say, 'Hey, this isn't what we wanted you to legislate.' Good for them.
