It seem like every big piece of legislation that becomes law under the Obama White House has only been able to pass with back-door, dishonest tactics. The left has usurped the Constitution, lied to the public, used special interest groups, and even exploited children to promote their legislation the last five years. While it may be effective, Glenn knows that in order to win in the long run, those standing for freedom can't use these tactics.
"We always have to do things the right way," he said this morning. "We always have to stand up for the people's rights — even if they're people that we disagree with. We cannot cheer for someone's demise if their demise has come at an unconstitutional way. Cannot do it. Our problem, and not with people, our problem is with our rights being trampled and so we have to stand up."
This was in particularly important to note for Glenn this morning because of some legislation being pushed in his home state of Texas. The Texas Senate was set to vote on a bill, known as SB 5, that would ban abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy and force many clinics that perform the procedure to upgrade their facilities and be classified as ambulatory surgical centers. The bill also required doctors who performed the procedure to have admitting privileges at a hospital within 30 miles.
Democrat State Senator Wendy Davis had different plans. According to TheBlaze,
"Wearing pink tennis shoes to prepare for nearly 13 consecutive hours of standing, a Democratic Texas state senator on Tuesday began a one-woman filibuster to block a GOP-led effort that would impose stringent new abortion restrictions across the nation’s second-most populous state.Sen. Wendy Davis, 50, of Fort Worth began the filibuster at 11:18 a.m. CDT Tuesday and passed the halfway mark in her countdown to midnight – the deadline for the end of the 30-day special session.
Rules stipulate she remain standing, not lean on her desk or take any breaks – even for meals or to use the bathroom. Colleagues removed her chair so she wouldn’t sit down by mistake."
While Glenn is clearly on the pro-life side of this debate, he wasn't exactly please with the GOP's response to the filibuster. The GOP controlled House was able to end the filibuster just before midnight and voted 19-10 to pass the bill that would ban abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy. But here's the thing — while the vote to end the filibuster may have made the midnight cut-off, the vote on the bill didn't.
This morning on radio, Glenn expressed his feelings that if the Texas GOP is going to pass this law, it has to be done legally.
"The left stood up and they did this whole thing and they tried to be like Rand Paul and the President even tweeted, "#StandwithWendy Something extraordinary happening in Texas." Well, they found a loophole and they shut it down, and it actually wasn't a loophole. When he shut her down, I think he was right. He gave her three warnings throughout the day. It's very complex on how it has to work. She violated, he gave her three warnings. On the third one he shut it down. But then they passed this bill after midnight," Glenn explained.
" The Senate closes its session at midnight. It's time‑stamped 12:02. That's — you've passed it and you didn't do it the right way. The Governor has to call for a special session and do it the right way," Glenn continued.
"Let me say the words of George Washington: Let us raise a standard that the wise and the honest can repair. And what that meant then and what that means now is you will never be able to go back and have the wise and the honest later fix anything and try to repair it if we've ever cut corners. It's not worth doing unless we do it right. And it has to be done legally, properly, peacefully. It has to be done the right way. Because we're not just, we're not trying to defeat the left. We are trying to build something that can last forever. It is so wildly broken. We go back and look at the pieces of the way they originally did it, repair what we can, and anything we do to repair or rebuild must be done properly. The governor has to call for a special session. It was done wrong. It's illegal. Don't do it. Don't do it the wrong way."
It was later revealed that once Lt. Governor David Dewhurst was made aware of the time stamp of the vote, he acknowledged that it could not be submitted. If the GOP controlled House and Senate want to bring the bill up for another vote, Governor Rick Perry will have to call a second special session — the first of which was for this bill.
