Citizens’ Filibuster (Citizen’s Filibuster)

A filibuster occurs when someone holds the floor of a chamber of government, preventing a vote or another action. On Thursday, June 20, 2013, pro-abortion groups organized a “citizens’ filibuster” (also called “citizen’s filibuster”) of a Texas anti-abortion bill. About 700 citizens arranged to testify before a committee considering the bill, preventing the committee from closing debate and voting on the issue. On June 25, 2013, legislator Wendy Davis made a 10-hour filibuster in the Texas Senate.
 
The term “citizens’ filibuster” had been used before June 2013. A “Citizens’ Filibuster for Freedom” was held on Cinco de Mayo, May 5, 2006, in San Antonio. Radio host Alex Jones called for a “citizens’ filibuster” of the Texas legislature in June 2011.
 
 
In David’s Own Words 
Monday, May 01, 2006
Please join me in a 24-hour Citizens’ Filibuster for Freedom
 
On the occasion of Cinco de Mayo, May 5-6, San Antonio
 
The spreading popular rebellion against Big Oil represents the growing realization that we the people must win a revolution at the ballot box to reclaim our rights and liberties from the corporate and political power grabbers who seek to destroy democracy and abolish Constitutional checks and balances. As a fitting opportunity to spread that realization, please join me in a 24-hour Citizens’ Filibuster for Freedom on the occasion of Cinco de Mayo. The Filibuster will begin at 12 noon on Friday, May 5 and will continue until 12 noon on Saturday, May 6. It will take place at Main Plaza in downtown San Antonio (across the street from San Fernando Cathedral).
 
OpEdNews
General News 6/28/2011 at 11:46:33
TX—Committee passes castrated version of anti-TSA groping bill; Jones and activists respond with “Citizens’ Filibuster”
By Andrew Steele
(...)
Radio host Alex Jones on Monday called for citizens to once again converge on the Texas Capitol in what he calls a “Citizens’ Filibuster”—a grassroots lobbying effort aimed at pressuring lawmakers to save the original legislation before the special session of the legislature ends on Wednesday, asking them to filibuster if necessary.
 
Jessica W. Luther 
HELP DEFEAT OMNIBUS ANTI-CHOICE TX BILL TOMORROW, JUN 20 (THURS) 
◾Written by Jessica Luther
◾on June 19, 2013
◾Filed under Politics, Texas

UPDATE:
Final info about the committee meeting and the citizens’ filibuster
   
Texas Observer
UPDATED: Extraordinary Turnout for Citizen’s Filibuster of Anti-Abortion Bills
by Carolyn Jones Published on Friday, June 21, 2013, at 10:31 CST
Updated at 2:05 PM:
Early this afternoon, the House State Affairs committee met for 10 minutes to vote on HB 60, HB 6 and SB 5. The committee approved HB 60, the omnibus abortion bill, HB 16, the standalone 20-week ban, and a SB 5 substitute that has the 20-week ban added. The meeting had been called with only two hours’ notice and was held in a tiny room without a live video feed or seating for members of the public or media. Abortion-rights activists on Twitter were outraged. As one #HB60 tweet read: “After hours of public testimony, the House State Affairs Committee steamrolls the rights of Texas in minutes”.
(...)
In an extraordinary feat of grassroots organizing by abortion-rights groups such as NARAL Pro-Choice Texas, Planned Parenthood, the Lilith Fund as well as the Texas Democratic Party, bill opponents traveled from across Texas to be at the committee hearing for what organizers called a “citizen’s filibuster.”  With so little time left on the clock for the legislative special session (it expires on Tuesday), abortion-rights activists hoped to block the passage of the bills by forcing the committee to hear hours of public testimony.
 
Approximately 700 members of the public registered to speak. People waiting to testify—overwhelmingly in opposition to the bills—filled the committee room and a large overflow room as well as lobbies and corridors.
 
Filibuster organizers asked people to tell the committee how the anti-abortion bills would affect them individually. Testimonies were heartfelt and covered the full gamut of personal experience: those who had had abortions, who remembered the world before legal abortion, who had been raped, whose poor health meant that a pregnancy could be life-threatening.
 
The Huffington Post
Laura Bassett
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Texas ‘Citizen’s Filibuster’ Staged To Protest Restrictive Abortion Bills
Posted: 06/21/2013 1:52 pm EDT |  Updated: 06/21/2013 2:40 pm EDT
Hundreds of Texans gathered in the state capitol in Austin on Thursday night to stage a “citizen’s filibuster” of two bills that would dramatically restrict access to abortion in the state.
 
According to NARAL Pro-Choice Texas and Planned Parenthood Action Fund, two organizers of the protest, about 700 people from across the state traveled to Austin to the protest. At issue is a pair of bills that would ban abortion after 20 weeks of pregnancy, restrict access to medication abortions and require abortion clinics to become ambulatory surgical care centers. About 200 women were allowed to testify against the bills, and several more people continued to testify to a few remaining lawmakers after House State Affairs Committee chairman Rep. Byron Cook (R-Corsicana) closed the session at 3:45 a.m.
 
That Takes Ovaries
Don’t Mess With Texas Women: Citizens’ Filibuster Edition
22Jun2013
On Wednesday I came out of my vacation from politics fog to a barrage of emails from my feminist Texan friends. I had been, admittedly, trying to ignore the news out of the Texas legislature. These were my two weeks – my ONLY two weeks – off from politics, and I was really enjoying myself.
 
I felt like there was really nothing I could do to halt these horrific attempts to further restrict abortion access in Texas, especially from my mother’s couch in Houston. But then I found out that women from across the state were being asked to come out and speak to the House Committee on State Affairs. The plan was two fold: First, our perspectives and our stories should NOT be discounted in this special session, so we needed to make sure the committee heard from us. Second, even though there are not many rules in a special session, it could be possible to try a citizens’ filibuster by packing the witness list and continuing to speak until it was too late for them to get the bill to the House floor.
 
AUstin (TX) Chronicle
A Victory by the People
Filibuster, parliamentary gamesmanship kill abortion bill … for now
By Dan Solomon, 10:35AM, Wed. Jun. 26, 2013
(...)
The Opening Acts
Tuesday at the Capitol started early, with a rally featuring Cecile Richards – president of Planned Parenthood and daughter of former Gov. Ann Richards – and continued with some live theatre with a filibuster of the bill by Sen. Wendy Davis, D-Fort Worth, starting at 11:20am, intending to continue until the special session ended at midnight. Davis wore bright orange sneakers and a back brace, and she must have peed into something. She read testimony from Thursday night’s nullified “citizens’ filibuster.”