Women beat down GOP on Texas abortion bill

It's a very good day to be a liberal. The days long people's filibuster at the Texas statehouse culminated in an epic 11 hour filibuster on the Senate floor delivered by Texas state Sen. Wendy Davis.

Senator Davis was shooting for 13 hours but fell short when the Republicans successfully challenged her on procedural grounds, at which point the people in the gallery took over again and created enough noise to delay the vote until just past the mandated close of the special session.

Apparently hoping to take advantage of the confusion, Republicans tried to pull a fast bit of trickery and failed.

Initially, Republicans insisted the vote started before the midnight deadline and passed the bill that Democrats spent the day trying to kill. But after official computer records and printouts of the voting record showed the vote took place Wednesday, and then were changed to read Tuesday, senators retreated into a private meeting to reach a conclusion.

They concluded there were too many witnesses to get away with lying and the bill was deemed officially deceased. Chalk up a win for the forces of good and check out the numbers to fully appreciate how big a victory this was for women's rights.

Of course, this isn't the end of it. Hearing rumors Gov. Goodhair will call a second special session and Republicans are already working on redistricting Wendy Davis out of office, a revenge made so much simpler yesterday by the SCOTUS VRA decision.

Nonetheless, to have won even this temporary victory in Texas is inspiring. Between this and the ongoing Moral Monday protests in North Carolina, I haven't had this much hope for our future in a very long time.