UPDATE: SB5's VOTE TOOK PLACE AT 12:03.
For now, the bill is dead.
I watched Texas republicans pull bullshit points of order. Apparently Roe V. Wade and the Sonogram bill passed by the Texas legislature are irrelevant to a discussion on abortion, as ruled by the president of the Texas Senate. The Democrats did all they could to fight down the senate's action.
But as one staffer pointed out: Senate Rules in Texas are the Bermuda triangle of parliamentary procedure. Things get lost and forgotten.
And so, in the 13th hour, the Texas Republicans began ignoring senate rules and rolling right over the objections of Democratic Senators.
"This is bullshit!" Cried a woman's voice from the Gallery, "SHAME ON YOU!"
The Dems fought hard raising motions and parliamentary procedure questions. They were ignored.
Finally, with 15 minutes to go, Senator Leticia Van De Putte (who had recently arrived from her father's funeral), became frustrated with her motions being ignored. She asked "At what point must a female senator raise her hand or her voice to be recognized over her male colleagues in the room?”
The Senate Gallery roared to life. And the cheering didn't stop until after midnight.
The shouting prevented an orderly vote on the bill. They couldn't arrest everyone in the gallery in only 13 minutes, could they?
After midnight, the gallery quieted, but you could still hear chanting in the packed rotunda: "HELL NO, WE WONT GO!" They chanted. "WENDY! WENDY!" They chanted. "SHAME, SHAME!"
They shouted down the Texas Republicans when those Republicans attempted to ignore the rules of the senate. And as I'm writing this, they're still shouting in the rotunda. It began, and ended, with the peoples' filibuster.
I don't know if the bill was passed tonight. Neither, I think, do the senators themselves.
But I do know one thing:
The voices in Austin tonight, the people who refused to be silenced by their government, are a sign of things to come.
They are the brightening east.
The dawn is coming.