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'I will not be stopped': A Nebraska state senator is a role model in the fight to protect trans kids [1]
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Date: 2023-02-28
As reported by Jo Yurcaba for NBC News:
A Nebraska Democrat has vowed to filibuster every bill her state Senate colleagues introduce if they support a measure that would restrict certain transition-related health care for minors. State Sen. Machaela Cavanaugh began to filibuster — or talking for as long as possible to stop legislation from passing — during a Senate meeting on Thursday night. “If this Legislature collectively decides that legislating hate against children is our priority, then I am going to make it painful, painful for everyone,” Cavanaugh said during the meeting, which was recorded and shared by local news outlets. “If you want to inflict pain upon our children, I am going to inflict pain upon this body, and I have nothing but time, and I am going to use all of it.”
Vowing to “burn the session to the ground over this bill,” state Sen. Cavanaugh is now effectively blocking the passage of a stunning 42 separate pieces of legislation pending in Nebraska’s only state legislative body. And she’s going to keep at it.
x NE State Sen. Machaela Cavanaugh (D-Omaha) prepares to filibuster every bill on the legislative agenda unless Republicans pull their anti-trans bill.
"If people are like, 'Is she threatening us?,' let me clear: Yes, I am. I am threatening you." pic.twitter.com/ccOeCJoGGa — Heartland Signal (@HeartlandSignal) February 24, 2023
As Yurcaba reports, Legislative Bill 574 (LB 574), cribbed from anti-transgender bills now being introduced by Republicans in at least 24 state legislatures throughout the U.S., would “bar minors from receiving gender-affirming health care, including puberty blockers, hormone therapy and surgery.” It also threatens any “institutions” that provide such care by cutting off their state funding.
Several medical organizations, including the American Medical Association and Nebraska’s own Nebraska Medical Association, have opposed the legislation. Others, including the World Health Organization, the American Psychological Association, and the American Academy of Pediatrics, support providing gender-affirming care to trans youths.
As observed by Esquire’s Charles Pierce, state Sen. Cavanaugh, who represents Omaha, was nothing if not adamant about her intention to “monkey-wrench the whole process.”
“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."
Appearing Monday night on MSNBC’s The Rachel Maddow Show, Cavanaugh explained to Maddow that the Nebraska legislature has about 518 hours to pass 42 bills, including a budget for the state. It is her intent to force her Republican colleagues to choose exactly what their priorities are.
“Is our job to legislate hate, or is our job to govern and work on tax cuts and work on the economy? So I’m forcing their hand,” Cavanaugh said.
Also? The senator told Maddow that she’s doing this with strep throat. She literally will not be stopped “until I have nothing left to give.”
As he always does, Pierce assesses Cavanaugh’s strategy—and its potential success as a strategy—succinctly.
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.
Someone has to stand up to these noxious people. This brave Nebraska state senator has demonstrated how it can—and should—be done.
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[1] Url:
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/2/28/2155515/-Democratic-state-senator-filibusters-anti-trans-bill-vows-to-burn-the-session-down-to-defeat-it
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