Wendy Davis, former Texas Senator and Democratic nominee for the gubernatorial race of 2014, came to UTEP Tuesday night during a campus forum hosted by Texas Rising where over 100 students and El Pasoans showed up.
Davis drew national attention during the 2013 Texas legislative session when she filibustered Senate Bill 5 in 2011. The bill prohibited abortions for pregnancies over 20 weeks and required doctors. Davis successfully filibustered the bill but it was passed in a special session by Gov. Abbott. Her actions prompted a movie starring Sally Hendrick called “Let Her Speak” To be released.
Davis won 60 percent of the El Paso County vote in the gubernatorial election.
Claudia Yoli, founder of student-led “Education Not Deportation” immigrant advocacy group, Samantha Romero president of the West Fund local advocacy group founded in 2013 in response to Wendy Davis filibuster. Lowry Martin, interim president of the Borderland Rainbow Center LGBTQI advocacy group, was another panelist.
The panel went over the past legislative session, including bills that they said infringed on the rights of LGBTQ, women’s, and immigrant community.
“The way Republicans go about passing the kinds of laws that they’ve been successful in passing is to play on peoples fear. Every one of the really blatant really anti-lgtq community laws, anti-immigrant laws, anti-women laws, all of them prompted up a false boogeyman for purposes of engendering fear in people across the state,” Davis said.
When asked whether Davis would consider running again she said, “I hope to run again, I’m not going to in 2018, just for personal reasons.”
The panel also went over topics on immigration, women’s rights, immigration and voting.
Check out our live stream on the panel.