UPDATE: The president has found that a third point of order was well founded. The question was whether the senator's comments were germane to the bill. She was discussing the impact of this new bill on Texas women in the context of other legislation that Texas has already passed that also restricts access to abortion.
This is a blatantly partisan ruling, and has now been challenged from the floor, to tremenous cheers from the gallery.
My prediction, unfortunately, is that the Republican, anti-woman majority will uphold the chair and end the filibuster.
You should load this page and start watching right now.
It's a debate in the Texas state senate, and a pro-choice senator, Wendy Davis, is attempting to sustain a filibuster through the scheduled end of their session tonight to block a vicious anti-choice bill.
A lot of it has to do with the pecularities of the senate rules, which apparently provide that the speaker must stand on her own without leaning on anything, may not take a sip of water, may not leave for a bathroom break, and must confine her comments to what is germane to the bill.
For a parliamentarian this is intrinsically interesting, but what's more important is that here we have an individual state legislator doing everything she can to stand up to the nationwide Republican war on women.
She has hours yet to go and I don't know if she'll make it. She's already had two points of order sustained against her, and if another is sustained they can move to vote to cut off debate, but she appears to be pretty composed and focussed, and she has allies who are doing what they can to help her.
Go, Wendy! I admire her for standing up for this.
“Does the rule relating to the reading of `papers’ include reading a document from a computer, iPad, or other electronic device?”
‘Should cast a bright light on the knuckle-draggers, which women voters in Texas will well remember next time at the ballot box.
In fact, we might see a record turnout of female voters in Texas.