The Wendy Davis Filibuster: A Win for New Media

In this democracy, with its relatively low voter turnout (about 60% in 2012, depending on who you ask) and highly partisan Congress, anything that sparks engagement in the political process is a plus. Enter Texas State Senator Wendy Davis. By now, you've heard of her. But, as of Tuesday morning around 11 a.m. CDT, when she began her epic, near-eleven-hour filibuster on the floor of the Texas state senate, she was largely unknown.

Davis had tweeted, to her some 1,200 followers, the night prior:

The leadership may not want to listen to TX women, but they will have to listen to me. I intend to filibuster this bill. #SB5 #txlege

— Wendy Davis (@WendyDavisTexas) June 25, 2013

Governor Rick Perry had convened a special senate session for the bill to which Davis was referring: Senate Bill 5. Bill 5 would have given Texas some of the most restrictive laws on abortion in the nation, and should have passed easily with state Republicans' iron clad majority. That wasn't the case by day's end, however, and Davis was a hero to many of the 180,000 who tuned into the live stream on YouTube at its peak. (Though none could find any of the major news networks covering it).

As one commenter on Slate's Facebook post directing social media users to the filibuster live stream wrote: "I've never been so glued to something so boring." And she was far from alone — #StandWithWendy trended worldwide as the tweets poured in. The viewer count, which clocked in at around 40,000 at 9:15 p.m. CDT, would more than quadruple by night's end.

In the final minutes of the special session, after opponents had successfully ended Davis' filibuster with parliamentary points of order (including a reprimand for receiving help with a back brace), and her allies in the senate had stalled for nearly two hours with their own procedural tricks, the crowd of activists in the gallery took the reigns. Their chanting and hollering was later called by many "the people's filibuster" (or an "angry mob," depending on your view):

Even after the vote on the bill had taken place near midnight local time, the conversation continued. Arguably, by focusing their online voices and attention on what was happening, the community, both online and in real life, forced accountability: Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst was obliged to nullify the disputed vote on the bill and Gov. Perry had to announce a new special session to reconsider SB5. Sen. Davis, as of Thursday afternoon, had upwards of 100,000 Twitter followers and was discussing a possible run for governor.

Twitter founder Jack Dorsey joined in that night, retweeting a visceral example (captured on his company's recently-acquired video platform) of the large-scale activism in the Texas capitol that was at the heart of it all.

"HELL NO WE WON'T GO!" #sb5 #txlege #standwithwendy https://t.co/cnf5IEhwa9

— Jack Dorsey (@jack) June 26, 2013

The president's political arm, Obama for America, had already summed it up hours earlier, though, when Davis was still mounting her impassioned prosecution of what she and opponents consider the bill's unintended consequences for women's health across the state:

Something special is happening in Austin tonight: http://t.co/RpbnCbO6zw #StandWithWendy

— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) June 26, 2013

As the tweets, Facebook posts, and Vine videos rolled in, Tuesday became a huge day for new media and, on a larger scale, democracy itself. People were engaged. In that moment, they didn't have Rachel Maddow or Bill O'Reilly on 24-hour cable news to tell them what they should be up in arms about or how they should think about it. They took to the Internet, watching, commenting, and getting their hands dirty in the political discourse as history was made, in what otherwise would have been a largely ignored issue germane only to one state of many.

That's the power of new media. It's the Wild West, in a sense, where anything is possible. Young and old unite over topics typically alienating (even for politics); we watch, riveted, as a single mother quite literally stands for her constituents; and, whatever ultimately happens to SB5 in Texas, here we all are, having a meaningful conversation about it.

Image via Erich Schlegel/Getty Images