#machaela cavanaugh

[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.”

[batboyblog]

Nebraska state Senators Megan Hunt and Machaela Cavanaugh are leading master class in dealing with transphobes in power:

Be mean to them.

from Senator Cavanaugh:

“I’m going to block anything from changing this bill. I tried to get the committee to change this bill before it came out of committee. I tried to convince the committee members that we should consider an amendment. I asked if the introducer requested an amendment. No. No. No.”

“So now you wanna compromise? To assuage your guilt? No thank you. I will not allow you to assuage your guilt. If you want to find a way to vote for 574, vote for 574. It’s there for you. Go for it. Have at it. But it’s not gonna get better. It’s going to be in its pure from that Sen. [Kathleen Kauth] and the male members of the HHS committee decided it would be in.”

“You get to vote for that and nothing else. If you want to blame me for your inability to stand up for your own beliefs, fine. I don’t have to live with you. I don’t have to live with your conscious, you do.”

and Senator Hunt:

“This bill harms me in an unforgivable way. This is a line you don’t cross with me. If you cross it today you’re staying on other side of it, because you have done irreparable harm. You’re doing harm to the body and Nebraska as well. Don’t say hi to me in the hall. Don’t ask me how my weekend was. Don’t walk my desk and ask me anything. Don’t send me Christmas cards. Take me off the list. You don’t know me. We have no relationship. And if you don’t believe me, if you think I’m going to cool down and change my mind? You should believe me. No one in the world holds a grudge like me. And no one in the world cares less about being petty than me. I don’t care. I don’t like you. You aren’t welcome in my space. You aren’t’ a safe person for my child to be around or any child frankly. Don’t believe me? You should.”

[the-cimmerians]

Last month, Nebraska state Senator Machaela Cavanaugh declared that she'd filibuster every damn bill the Republican-controlled legislature put forward unless it pulled proposed legislation banning gender-affirming health care for transgender youth. Specifically, this anti-trans garbage would ban puberty blockers, gender-affirming surgeries, and hormone therapy.

Cavanaugh wasn't shy about her intentions. She said, "If people are like, 'Is she threatening us?' let me be clear: Yes, I am. I am threatening you." She added, "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.”

[xipiti]

Nebraska lawmakers haven't passed a single bill this session, as a state lawmaker continues a weeks-long filibuster protest over trans rights and vows to "burn this session to the ground" if she has to.

Who is she?

Democratic state senator Machaela Cavanaugh.

Starting in February, Cavanaugh has filibustered every bill that has come before the legislature this session.

She is protesting proposal LB574 — or the "Let Them Grow Act" — which was put forward by a Republican lawmaker.

Under the bill's current version, physicians would be barred from providing gender-affirming procedures and care for Nebraska residents younger than 19.

Cavanaugh talks for up to 12 hours a day on the floor to prevent bills passing, speaking on everything from the bills themselves to her favorite salads.

And she has made her intentions clear: "If this legislature collectively decides that legislating hate against children is our priority, then I am going to make it painful — painful — for everyone."

[libelula202]

This is from Mar 22, 2023.

She filibustered to protest bill LB574.

Unfortunately, the bill passed.

(Source/article linked under the cut)

Nebraska hasn't passed a single bill this year because one lawmaker keeps filibustering in protest of an anti-trans bill: 'I will burn this session to the ground'

Damn. I thought she was just gonna up and make a fuss and her swearing to protect trans kids was a bunch of empty words (again).

But no. She's one-woman filibustering the entire Nebraska legislature into a complete standstill until they agree to protect the rights of trans kids.

She was 100% serious when she said she'd make it as painful for everyone as it is for trans kids. Gahddamn.

This is why small elections matter. She's not a country wide senator or president or shit. She's just a local official representing District 6 in Nebraska.

This is why the "smaller" elections between the presidential elections matter.

-fae

[dontmeantobepoliticalbut]

A Nebraska Republican state senator who voted for a combined anti-trans and anti-abortion bill that passed by one vote in the legislature has admitted that she didn’t pay attention to the issue.

State Senator Christy Armendariz represents the 18th District in the state.

Writing for New York magazine, journalist Lila Shapiro said that the Senator “led me to a bench in an empty hallway” to say that she “found it puzzling that a reporter from New York would come all the way to Nebraska to cover this affair.”

“I don’t watch the news or get the newspaper,” she told the magazine. “Is there anything going on I should be aware of?”

The writer told Ms. Armendariz that other states have passed other similar bills restricting trans and women’s reproductive rights and that an appeals court on the federal level in the Nebraska circuit had ruled that one of them was unconstitutional.

“So is it a big widespread thing?” she asked the writer, adding that regular Nebraska residents were unaware of the issue.

“I knocked doors for a year, and nobody brought this up,” the Senator said, adding that she wished that the legislation had never been brought to the floor.

For three months, a group of lawmakers in the state ground nearly all legislative business in the state to a halt, grabbing the nation’s attention with a remarkable filibuster to stifle a bill that would end gender-affirming care for young transgender people.

Late Tuesday 16 May, Republican lawmakers broke through, advancing a bill that not only bans gender-affirming care for trans people under 19 years old but also tacks on an amendment to outlaw abortion after roughly 10 weeks of pregnancy and hands the state’s GOP-appointed medical officer the authority to set the rules for affirming care for trans youth.

Hundreds of protesters filled the capital in Lincoln, standing outside the doors and in the gallery above lawmakers while chanting “one more vote to save our lives”; only one Senator would have had to defect from supporters of the bill to kill the legislation.

The vote – on the 78th day of a 90-day session – followed a series of manoeuvres that opponents argued were bending and breaking the rules of the state legislature to hammer through the legislation and avert the filibuster, which would allow opponents to occupy their allotted time to speak the bill to death.

“What you are attempting to do today is the lowest of the absolute lows,” state Senator Machaela Cavanaugh, who spearheaded the filibuster, told Republican lawmakers.

“You literally have to cheat at every moment of this debate in every possible way … You are allowing it to happen,” she added. “You do literally have blood on your hands, and if you vote for it, you will have buckets.”

State Senator Megan Hunt, the first openly LGBT+ member of the state legislature and the mother of a trans child, lambasted lawmakers for their “escape routes” from the capitol to avoid facing protesters.

“If you can’t go out and face them, you are not worthy,” she said. “Your legacy is filth.”

Protesters surrounded the state capitol chambers in Lincoln again on 19 May, chanting “keep your bans off our bodies” and “save our lives” as lawmakers made their final round of votes on the bill, which passed 33-15. The bill reached the exact number of votes needed to pass.

Republican Governor Jim Pillen signed it into law on Monday.

“We are working to inspire Nebraskans to get in the game so that abortion is simply unthinkable in the state of Nebraska,” Mr. Pillen said, according to WOWT.

He called the legislation “the most significant win for [the] social conservative agenda that over a generation has seen in Nebraska. I think that’s something we need to clap and shout about.”

At a show in Nebraska hours after the vote on Friday night, the artist Lizzo lambasted the legislation from the stage. “It really breaks my heart that there are young people growing up in a world that doesn’t protect them,” she said.

“Don’t let anyone tell you who you are. ... These laws are not real. You are what’s real, and you deserve to be protected,” she said.

“Hat tip to Senator Armendariz, who says she doesn’t know anything about the issue, doesn’t pay attention to current events, and wishes the bill she voted for hadn’t been introduced. It passed by 1 vote,” wrote Ari Kohen, a political science professor at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln.

“These are the people who devoted an entire legislative session to taking away people’s rights in the face of massive opposition from experts and ordinary citizens. They openly admit that none of their constituents mentioned this issue to them and they don’t know much about it,” he added. “We have a handful of legislators who care enough to listen and learn. And then we have the majority, who seem not to know or care what they’re doing as long as it feels right to them and they have the votes to do it. Awful.”

The Independent has requested comment from Ms. Armendariz.

[batboyblog]

LINCOLN, Neb. (KMTV) — State Sen. Machaela Cavanaugh of Omaha has been filibustering every bill in the Nebraska Legislature for three weeks, but that ended Thursday morning. 

She announced a pause for now. But if a bill that would ban gender-affirming care for transgender youth dies on the floor of the legislature next week, her filibuster of every bill will end.

The filibuster has been focused on that bill, LB 574. But in an agreement with Speaker John Arch, the bill will be officially debated beginning on Tuesday. 

Cavanaugh says the bill will die two days later, on Thursday next week. She believes it does not have the 33 votes necessary to overcome a filibuster.

"It'll fail on cloture," she said. "It's time to get some work done for Nebraska."

----

"This is a direct attack and assault on trans children, and not standing up for trans children would be a failure on my part. I'm going to stand up for as long as they need me to or as exhausting as it is, or how much it hurts my throat or my feet," Cavanaugh said. "They deserve that."

She said, "As long as this bill is no longer a threat to the trans children in Nebraska, then I will move forward in a positive direction."

in other words:

Victory!

[rebel-girl-queen-of-my-world]

Also worthy of attention - the incredible Megan Hunt - Nebraska State Senator from Omaha’s District 8. She’s a fierce protector of her trans son and a fucking lioness:

I’m in awe of her.

Now THIS is allyship.

[ganurath]

There's a lot going on here, so I'm going to hammer the key points.

The bill up for debate proposed by District 31's Senator Kathleen Kauth, LB574, prevents Nebraskans age 18 or younger from receiving surgical and/or medical services to help them transition. Health care providers are forbidden from making so much as a reference to another provider, even one in a state where such treatment would be legal.

Up until recently, the filibustering of Senator Machaela Cavanaugh of District 6 has been hitting every bill that has come up, slowing the session to the crawl. Earlier this week, LB574 got moved up in the queue to try to get the matter out of the way.

If debate runs out of time, a cloture vote is held, which requires a 2/3rds majority of 33 votes to succeed. Otherwise, a simple majority is required. With a single house legislature and a Republican governor, running the debate to the cloture vote is the best defense of Nebraska's trans youth. With 17 Democrats in the Nebraska Senate, they have just enough to keep the debate going so long as none of them vote to end the debate.

Which is precisely what the Democrat Senator from District 5, Mike McDonnell, did. There are two more rounds of debate after this, before the bill either dies or gets the governor's signature.

McDonnell has diverged from the Democrat party line before, citing his Catholic faith as the reason for his anti-abortion position. According to the article above and more local publications on the topic, all the lawmakers in the unicameral were alerted to how psychological professionals have been receiving calls from patients in crisis, considering suicide. Given the Catholic Church's position on suicide, I'm hoping an appeal to his faith might sway him where basic human empathy (such as for his fellow Senator, Megan Hunt, who has a trans son young enough to be impacted by the bill) seems to have failed him.

Also, various local publications have said he has mayoral ambitions, so anyone living in Omaha outside his particular voting district shouldn't feel shy about contacting the email address on his public profile.

[archaalen]

AP News: Nebraska lawmaker 3 weeks into filibuster over trans bill

Not all heroes...

[midweastindigo]

#hot if true

stop she's so real for this

[batboyblog]

LINCOLN, Neb. —  

The Nebraska Legislature was set to vote Thursday on a contentious bill that seeks to ban gender-affirming care for minors and led one lawmaker to stage a weekslong filibuster.

The vote to advance the bill was expected on the third day of debate in which lawmakers have angrily accused one another of hypocrisy and a lack of collegiality. It also saw Omaha Sen. Megan Hunt promising to join fellow Sen. Machaela Cavanaugh’s effort to filibuster every bill that comes before lawmakers for the rest of the 90-day session if the bill advances. 

Hunt took to the floor of the Legislature on Wednesday to confess that the debate is deeply personal for her, because her teenage son is transgender. She called the bill an affront to her as a parent and called out by name lawmakers she would hold accountable if they vote to advance it.

“If this bill passes, all your bills are on the chopping block, and the bridge is burned,” she said. “I’m not doing anything for you. Because this is fake. this has nothing to do with real life. this is all of you playing government.”

The proposal had caused tumult in the legislative session long before debate began on it earlier this week. It was cited as the genesis of a nearly three-week, uninterrupted filibuster carried by Cavanaugh, who followed through on her vow in late February to filibuster every bill before the Legislature — even those she supported — declaring she would “burn the session to the ground over this bill.”

She stuck with it until an agreement was reached late last week to push the bill to the front of the debate queue. Instead of trying to eat time to keep the bill from getting to the floor, Cavanaugh decided she wanted a vote to put on the record which lawmakers would “legislate hate against children.”

The Nebraska bill, along with another that would ban trans people from using bathrooms and locker rooms or playing on sports teams that don’t align with the sex listed on their birth certificates, are among roughly 150 bills targeting transgender people that have been introduced in state legislatures this year. 

Introduced by Republican Sen. Kathleen Kauth, a freshman lawmaker, the bill would outlaw gender-affirming therapies such as hormone treatments, puberty blockers and gender reassignment surgery for those 18 and younger. The purpose of the bill, she has said, is to protect youth from undertaking gender-affirming treatments they might later regret as adults, citing research that says adolescents’ brains aren’t fully developed.

She introduced an amendment Tuesday to drop the restriction on hormone treatments, instead banning only gender reassignment surgery for minors in an effort to get enough votes for the measure to advance. But opponents vowed to force a vote Thursday on the original bill.

If advanced, the bill would have to survive two more rounds of debate to pass in the unique one-house, officially nonpartisan Legislature. Republican Gov. Jim Pillen has said he will sign the bill into law if it reaches his desk.

If it fails to advance, it’s dead for the session, but could be revived next year.

today is the moment of truth, Nebraska Republicans need 33 votes to override Senator Cavanaugh's (and Senator Hunt now) filibuster, there are 32 Republicans, if every Democrat hangs tough and backs up Cavanaugh and Hunt then this bill dies, at least for the rest of the year.

[afragmentcastadrift]

A clip to her appearance on The Rachel Maddow show, Feb. 27, 2023 - https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow/watch/state-democrat-stands-up-to-republican-fixation-on-anti-trans-restrictions-164150341945