#Filibuster

[dontmeantobepoliticalbut]

Nebraska state Senator John Fredrickson is the first out gay man elected to the state legislature. Now, he has another feather in his cap.

After an impassioned speech in opposition to a bill that targeted transgender youth, two of his colleagues changed their minds about the legislation that they had co-sponsored. The measure did not pass out of committee after they did.

The state’s legislature is nonpartisan but breaks into traditional Democrat and Republican divides. As in other states, bills attacking the transgender community have been championed by conservatives.

The bill would have banned transgender youth from locker rooms, sports teams and bathrooms that match their gender identity. It also effectively barred transgender boys from all sports competitions.

Fredrickson and his husband have a son – and as a gay parent, he spoke directly to the kids and families who were under the microscope.

“The world can be tough and scary,” he said. “I personally know a thing or two about having a family that many people might say is not normal.”

“I stand here today, confidently, to tell you if you love your kid unconditionally for who they are, and if they know they’re loved, you can weather a lot,” Fredrickson added.

“Don’t spend a minute of your energy or time thinking about any of my colleagues in here who are too scared of difference to allow themselves to understand and celebrate the beauty and joy that you bring to our state.”

Instead, he said, parents should “love your babies and surround yourself with the people who love you.”

The bill was being filibustered. It needed 33 votes to pass out of the committee, but it garnered only 31. After Fredrickson gave his speech, when it came time to vote, two co-sponsors of the bill, state Sens. Tom Brandt and Merv Riepe, chose to abstain. Their move effectively stopped the bill.

Nebraska’s legislature will adjourn this week.

#us politics #news #lgbtq nation #lgbtqia+ #trans rights #transphobia #nebraska #2024 #sen. John Fredrickson #sen. Tom Brandt #sen. Merv Riepe #filibuster #twitter #tweet #x #lgbtqia+ rights #lgbtqia+ representation

[gwydionmisha]

#Nebraska #Filibuster #Machaela Cavanaugh #Anti-Trans Bill #News

[aunti-christ-ine]

Popular vote, if done correctly, is fair majority rule. It is not determined state-by-state; it's counted one person, one vote, throughout the entire country (as if the states did not exist, as if the country was all one state, and our votes were not separated into bunches). FAIRNESS.

Electoral College

vs.

Popular Vote

Popular vote is not "mob rule" as so many have been brainwashed into believing.

🇺🇲 ABOLISH THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE 🇺🇸

#electoral college #1970 #filibuster

[spaceshipsandpurpledrank]

#talkin #tik tok #florida #racism #white supremacy #myundocumentedass #filibuster

[thepopculturearchivist]

LITERARY DIGEST, March 19, 1927. Adjusting for inflation, Babe Ruth's 1927 salary was equivalent to approximately $1.25 million in 2024 money. He earned his keep by hitting 60 home runs as the Yankees cruised to a World Series championship.

#1927 #1920s #u.s. history #u.s. senate #filibuster #racism #voting rights #supreme court #oliver wendell holmes #texas #babe ruth #baseball

[necrozma96w]

Animatronic filibuster obstructa

#five nights at freddy's #fnaf #the battle cats #filibuster obstructa #filibuster #animatronic

[dontmean2bepoliticalbut]

#us politics #twitter #tweet #tyt #the young turks #john iadarola #filibuster #roe v. wade #abortions #abortion bans #republicans #conservatives #gop #democrats #2022 #biden administration #women's health #women's rights #women's bodily autonomy #abortion is better than negligence #abortion is a human right #abortion is healthcare

[yahoo201027]

Day in Fandom History: April 14…

Archer, along with Charlene and Calderon, improvise with a plan to escape their prison cells and must join the rebels following both Calderon’s dethronement and Cyril becoming the new president. Part 3 of the four-part Season 5 finale, “Archer Vice: Filibuster”, premiered on this day, 10 Years Ago.

#Day in Fandom History #10 Years Ago #Archer #Archer FX #Archer Vice #Season 5 #Episode 12 #Filibuster #Cartoon #Animation

[dontmeantobepoliticalbut]

It was a mundane, unanimously supported bill on liquor taxation that saw state Sen. Machaela Cavanaugh take to the mic on the Nebraska Legislature floor last week. She offered her support, then spent the next three days discussing everything but the bill, including her favorite Girl Scout cookies, Omaha’s best doughnuts and the plot of the animated movie “Madagascar.”

She also spent that time railing against an unrelated bill that would outlaw gender-affirming therapies for those 18 and younger. It was the advancement of that bill out of committee that led Cavanaugh to promise three weeks ago to filibuster every bill that comes before the Legislature this year — even the ones she supports.

“If this Legislature collectively decides that legislating hate against children is our priority, then I am going to make it painful — painful for everyone,” the Omaha married mother of three said. “I will burn the session to the ground over this bill.”

True to her word, Cavanaugh has slowed the business of passing laws to a crawl by introducing amendment after amendment to every bill that makes it to the state Senate floor and taking up all eight debate hours allowed by the rules — even during the week she was suffering from strep throat. Wednesday marks the halfway point of this year’s 90-day session, and not a single bill will have passed thanks to Cavanaugh’s relentless filibustering.

Clerk of the Legislature Brandon Metzler said a delay like this has happened only a couple of times in the past 10 years.

“But what is really uncommon is the lack of bills that have advanced,” Metzler said. “Usually, we’re a lot further along the line than we’re seeing now.”

In fact, only 26 bills have advanced from the first of three rounds of debate required to pass a bill in Nebraska. There would normally be two to three times that number by mid-March, Metzler said. In the last three weeks since Cavanaugh began her bill blockade, only three bills have advanced.

The Nebraska bill and another that would ban trans people from using bathrooms and locker rooms or playing on sports teams that don’t align with the gender listed on their birth certificates are among roughly 150 bills targeting transgender people that have been introduced in state legislatures this year. Bans on gender-affirming care for minors have already been enacted this year in some Republican-led states, including South Dakota and Utah, and Republican Governors in Tennessee and Mississippi are expected to sign similar bans into law. And Arkansas and Alabama have bans that were temporarily blocked by federal judges.

Cavanaugh’s effort has drawn the gratitude of the LGBTQ community, said Abbi Swatsworth, executive director of LGBTQ advocacy group OutNebraska. The organization has been encouraging members and others to inundate state lawmakers with calls and emails to support Cavanaugh’s effort and oppose bills targeting transgender people.

“We really see it as a heroic effort,” Swatsworth said of the filibuster. “It is extremely meaningful when an ally does more than pay lip service to allyship. She really is leading this charge.”

Both Cavanaugh and the conservative Omaha lawmaker who introduced the trans bill, state Sen. Kathleen Kauth, said they’re seeking to protect children. Cavanaugh cited a 2021 survey by The Trevor Project, a nonprofit focused on suicide prevention efforts among LGBTQ youth, that found that 58% of transgender and nonbinary youth in Nebraska seriously considered suicide in the previous year, and more than 1 in 5 reported that they had attempted it.

“This is a bill that attacks trans children,” Cavanaugh said. “It is legislating hate. It is legislating meanness. The children of Nebraska deserve to have somebody stand up and fight for them.”

Kauth said she’s trying to protect children from undertaking gender-affirming treatments that they might later regret as adults. She has characterized treatments such as hormone therapy and gender reassignment surgery as medically unproven and potentially dangerous in the long term — although the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Psychiatric Association all support gender-affirming care for youths.

Cavanaugh and other lawmakers who support her filibuster effort “don’t want to acknowledge the support I have for this bill,” Kauth said.

“We should be allowed to debate this,” she said. “What this is doing is taking the ball and going home.”

Nebraska’s unique single-chamber Legislature is officially nonpartisan, but it is dominated by members who are registered Republicans. Although bills can win approval with a simple majority in the 49-seat body, it takes 33 votes to overcome a filibuster. The Legislature is currently made up of 32 registered Republicans and 17 registered Democrats, but the slim margin means that the defection of a single Democrat could allow Republicans to pass whatever laws they want.

Democrats have had some success in using filibusters, which burn valuable time from the session, delay votes on other issues and force lawmakers to work longer days. Last year, conservative lawmakers were unable to overcome Democratic filibusters to pass an abortion ban or a law that would have allowed people to carry concealed guns without a permit.

Cavanaugh said she has taken a page from the playbook of Ernie Chambers — a left-leaning former legislator from Omaha who was the longest-serving lawmaker in state history. He mastered the use of the filibuster to try to tank bills he opposed and force support for bills he backed.

“But I’m not aware of anyone carrying out a filibuster to this extent,” Cavanaugh said. “I know it’s frustrating. It’s frustrating for me. But there is a way to put an end to — just put a stop to this hateful bill.”

Chambers praised Cavanaugh’s “perseverance, gumption and stamina to fight as hard as she can using the rules” to stand up for the marginalized, adding, “I would be right there fighting with her if I were still there.”

Speaker John Arch has taken steps to try to speed the process, such as sometimes scheduling the Legislature to work through lunch to tick off another hour on the debate clock. And he noted that the Legislature will soon be moving to all-day debate once committee hearings on bills come to an end later this month.

But even with frustration growing over the hobbled process, the Republican speaker defended Cavanaugh’s use of the filibuster.

“The rules allow her to do this, and those rules are there to protect the voice of the minority,” Arch said. “We may find that we’re passing fewer bills, but the bills we do pass will be bigger bills we care about.”

Chambers said this is a sign that Cavanaugh’s efforts are working. Typically, the Speaker will step in and seek to postpone the bill causing the delay to allow more pressing legislation such as tax cuts or budget items to move forward.

“I think you’re going to start to see some of that happen,” Chambers said. “I think if (Cavanaugh) has the physical stamina, she can do it. I don’t think she shoots blanks.”

#us politics #news #nbc news #nebraska #Machaela Cavanaugh #filibuster #trans healthcare ban #trans healthcare #trans rights #transgender #lgbtqia+ rights #lgbtqia+ #lgbtqia+ representation #Nebraska Legislature #2023 #Brandon Metzler #Abbi Swatsworth #OutNebraska #Kathleen Kauth #hormone therapy #gender reassignment surgery #Ernie Chambers #John Arch

[gwydionmisha]

#Nebraska #Machaela Cavanaugh #Trans #Filibuster #News

[kp777]

From the article:

In Nebraska's unicameral legislature (beloved as it is by pub trivia teams from coast to coast), there are 17 Democrats. There are 32 Republicans, many of whom are new and, at best, MAGA-curious. The math means the 17 Democrats have no means to stop rancid legislation except by throwing their bodies against the machine. A state senator named Machaela Cavanaugh has decided to be first in line.

The legislative year had hardly begun when the new Republican majority advanced the modern conservative wish list: a fetal "heartbeat" bill; a permitless "concealed carry" gun bill; and, most grotesque of all, Legislative Bill 574, which would forbid health-care workers from providing gender-affirming care to anyone under the age of 19. Facing this stampede of Fox News hobby-horses, Sen. Cavanaugh rose during the debate over a property-tax bill and explained to the unicameral that she intended to do everything she could to monkey-wrench the whole process. And she did so with refreshing frankness. Unless the heartbeat and anti-trans bills are withdrawn, she intends to filibuster, well, everything.

“If this legislature collectively decides that legislating hate against children is our priority, then I am going to make it painful; painful for everyone. Because if you want to inflict pain upon our children, I am going to inflict pain upon this body. I have nothing, nothing but time. And I am going to use all of it. You cannot stop me. I will not be stopped. If LB574 gets an early floor debate and moves forward, it will be very painful for this body. And if people are like, ‘Is she threatening us?’ Let me be clear: Yes, I am threatening you."

This is one way to do it, especially when one apparently has no other way. You make these people own their actions. You draw attention to the true nature of what's being done to constituents in ways that they and their donors find inconvenient. You slow down the process so that everybody gets a really good look at it. And with any luck at all (and we haven't had much of that these days), they hate what they see. Sen. Cavanaugh is welcome in this shebeen any time.

#nebraska state legislature #machaela cavanaugh #anti-transgender bill #filibuster #gender affirming care

[kelandry5]

Random Thought

I wonder if anyone has considered reading Twilight fanfiction written by thirsty teenagers during a filibuster. Or maybe some star trek lemons. I wonder if reading smut fanfiction about former presidents would be allowed... cuz there's some whacky stuff out there...

Can you imagine? If they got dramatic and used different voices for different characters, too? Just making it as cringey as humanly possible while congress has no choice but to sit there and endure it. I wonder who would win...

#government #american politics #congress #filibuster #random #fanfiction #twilight #smut

[ladymacabrebeth]

Somehow, I'm grateful to exist in this generation. Otherwise, I'd be a suspected witch, burned, mistaken for a heretic for being too authentic, expressive, and progressive amidst a world filled with close-minded people.

Lady Macabre Beth

#genz #millennial #generation #generationalpha #progressive #openminded #closeminded #witch #cancelculture #witchhunt #burnedatstake #witches #expressive #authentic #heretic #filibuster

[mudwerks]

(via The GOP would overturn the filibuster to impose a national abortion ban if it wins the midterms, ex-RNC chief suggests : politics)

this is why the Sinema and Manchin cosplay about NOT DESTROYING THE FILIBUSTER is utter bullshit.

you know these fucks will do it in a fetal heartbeat if they get the power.

vote with your mind

#politics #filibuster #GOP will use anything #legal or not #to get power #and enslave non-white non-male citizens

[benthesoldiersjeanshorts]

#dank memes #memes #lol memes #meme #stolen memes #iasip memes #always sunny #filibuster