Parliamentary Inquiry: When Do I Drop the Mic

If you missed last night’s chamber of totalitarian anarchy and nail-biting procedural debate in the Texas state Senate, you can catch up on the majestic root canal of a victory right here, or watch a short clip of the wild, valiant Filibuster of the People in the minutes leading up to midnight and the end of the special session. Some of the best moments in Wendy Davis’s attempted 13-hour stand for reproductive rights occurred in the two hours after she was called off the floor for speaking about a (“non-germane”) Texas sonogram law; here, her Democratic colleague, state Senator Leticia Van de Putte, calls bullshit on some bullshit.

Van de Putte also ran down the clock by calmly inquiring about the points of order that led to Davis’s suspension. “I was not able to be here on the floor,” she said. The reason for her absence: the funeral of her 82-year-old father, a poet and Korean War veteran who died in a car crash last week.