Close to 2,000 witnesses turned up on Tuesday to testify on a controversial abortion bill under consideration in the Texas Legislature, spilling into multiple overflow rooms in the state capitol building in Austin, officials said.
“In terms of witnesses, the system has never seen overload like this,” said Rep. Helen Giddings, the vice chairwoman of the House State Affairs Committee.
It’s the second time in the last week in which legislating in the state capitol has come under national scrutiny as lawmakers are expected to debate abortion policy until late into the evening.
(PHOTOS: Scenes from Texas abortion rights protest)
On Tuesday, the committee is hearing public testimony on a restrictive abortion measure that was derailed in the Texas Senate last week by a 13-hour filibuster led by State Sen. Wendy Davis. Texas Gov. Rick Perry called for another special session to reconsider the bill, among other issues, and that session kicked off Monday afternoon.
The Committee will hear public testimony until around midnight. Reports Tuesday evening indicated that 11 overflow rooms were procured for activists.
Testimony was by turns emotional, clinical and outraged — providing a sampling of the warring ideologies behind the highly contentious bill. One woman opposing the bill snapped, “no one” uses abortion as a form “of birth control.” A man speaking in support of the legislation offered a prayer before he lamented his sister’s abortion and the fact that, as a result, he couldn’t be an uncle. Another woman said that her teenage parents were forced to marry and give her up for adoption, so she pledged to speak out for “choice” in their honor. A witness working in health care said she expected clinics to meet the same standards she’s required to meet; the associate general counsel for the Texas Hospital Association challenged a section of the bill that affects doctors. Some struck personal notes in describing how abortion affected them, while others emphasized the scientific aspect of the issue.
Pro-abortion rights advocacy groups, under the umbrella title “Stand with Texas Women,” have taken to social media to urge testimony at the Tuesday hearing. Their supporters are wearing orange. A day earlier, a rally sponsored by Planned Parenthood Action Fund and other groups drew a crowd of about 5,000 people, plus celebrities including Stephanie March and Lisa Edelstein, and Natalie Maines of the Dixie Chicks. Supporters of the measure held a press conference Monday, drawing about 100 people. But Republicans aren’t deterred.
During the last session, Texas Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst said that the bill had enough votes to pass, but the filibuster — with an assist from vocal protesters — delayed the measure from achieving final passage before the end of the session. On Monday, Perry said on a Lubbock, Texas radio station that “the votes are still there.”
(PHOTOS: Wendy Davis’s filibuster)
The chairman of the Committee didn’t specify when a vote would occur. The Senate and rest of the House could take up the bill next week.
“The House is adjourned until Tuesday,” July 9, a senior Republican legislative aide told POLITICO on Monday. “The bill is likely to be on the House floor that day.”
The aide added that the Committee was likely to vote before the Fourth of July.
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