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Texas Republicans Consider Charging Wendy Davis $2.4 Million For Special Session

The Texas Legislature’s unprecedented three special sessions this summer are likely to leave the taxpayers of the Lone Star State footing a $2.4 million bill. But according to Republican state Rep. Giovanni Capriglione, there’s a simple option for covering part that: Make Democratic state Sen. Wendy Davis pay for one of the sessions.

“I think we need to remember why we are having this extra special session,” Capriglione told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram on Tuesday. “One state senator, in an effort to capture national attention, forced this special session.”

“I firmly believe that Sen. Wendy Davis should reimburse the taxpayers for the entire cost of the second special session,” Capriglione said. “I am sure that she has raised enough money at her Washington, D.C., fundraiser to cover the cost.”

According to the Star-Telegram, a special session, which can last up to 30 days, costs the state about $800,000 after representatives and senators have received their living expenses and travel allowance. After three special sessions, that adds up to $2.4 million.

Davis said it’s the state’s GOP leadership that’s to blame.

“It’s unfortunate that the leadership in power squandered taxpayer dollars pursuing partisan politics before Texas priorities and forced an unnecessary special session,” Davis said. http://news.yahoo.com/texas-republicans-think-wendy-davis-should-pay-f
or-special-session-142129814.html

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Rep. Giovanni Capriglione is heading up the faction of Republicans who think that Davis should use her D.C.-fundraised money to cover the cost. http://jezebel.com/texas-gop-wants-sen-wendy-davis-to-literally-pay-fo
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...original focus of the first special session was supposed to be on a transportation measure, but Republicans decided to make it all about restricting women’s reproductive rights instead. Their shift in priorities outraged women and led directly to the massive protests and marathon filibuster that caused the session to end without a successfully passed bill in the first place. So Governor Rick Perry called yet another costly special session of the state legislature to pass the bill they weren’t supposed to deal with originally. And now, Perry may have to call a third special session to pass the transportation bill that should have been passed the first time around.

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In the wake of yesterday's epic fail on transportation funding it looks like state legislators are headed back to Austin for a third month-long special session.

Much of this could have been avoided, of course. Lawmakers could have done what they're elected to do and finished their business in the spring. Failing that, they could have set aside inflammatory topics and focused on addressing the state's glaring funding shortfalls in water and transportation.

The other option is to blame everything -- the mounting numbers of special sessions, the unnecessary costs, the GOP's embarrassing collapse in round one -- on State Senator Wendy Davis. http://blogs.dallasobserver.com/unfairpark/2013/07/republicans_want_we
ndy_davis_t.php

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Even before Fort Worth Democrat Wendy Davis took the Senate floor late Tuesday morning and launched into the filibuster that would ultimately grab the nation's attention and kill attempts to railroad abortion restrictions through the state Legislature, she was at the top of Texas Republicans' hit list. Davis, they realized, has the whole package: humble back story; uncanny knack for politics; ability to rally the grassroots; ambitions for higher office; a uterus. She was, and remains, a very big threat to continued Republican dominance of state government.

So, it was no accident when GOP lawmakers attempted to shift Davis into a more conservative district during redistricting in 2011, or when the cash began pouring into Dr. Mark Shelton's no-holds-bars campaign to unseat her in 2012. And Beth Cubriel, the executive director of the Republican Party of Texas, could barely contain her glee when Davis drew the short straw and had to face re-election in 2014, two years early. Neither could party Chairman Steve Munisteri who "danced a jig" ( http://www.statesman.com/news/news/state-regional-govt-politics/fort-w
orths-wendy-davis-makes-waves-in-the-texas-s/nT7G2/).

While Democrats and abortion-rights supporters cheered, Republicans were loading ammunition for 2014. And it wasn't just former party Chairwoman Cathie Adams, though she did unleash quite the screed against "Whining Wendy" and "feminazis" on Twitter yesterday, including "Whining Wendy drones on proclaiming self-centered reasons to kill innocent babies" and "Too many pro-abortion feminazis are too poor to buy bras. That's DISGUSTING!"

Munisteri told Politico last night that the party was phone-banking voters in Davis' district during the filibuster to "fire up our base," as he put it.

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