Texas House GOP derails resolution to honor the late Cecile Richards

AUSTIN – The Dallas Morning News reports that a resolution honoring the late Cecile Richards — president of the nonprofit women’s health organization Planned Parenthood and daughter of the late Texas Gov. Ann Richards — was derailed Thursday in the GOP-dominated Texas House. House Resolution 236, by Rep. Donna Howard, D-Austin, was on a list of bills that were set to be approved with a single vote — standard procedure for the typically innocuous resolutions sponsored by members from both parties. It ended up in a legislative waiting room, unlikely to get passed by a decidedly anti-Planned Parenthood chamber. “We all deserve the opportunity to come before this chamber to recognize [and] celebrate … our constituents and know that we and they will be given the utmost respect,” Howard said in remarks to the chamber after her resolution was pulled down without a vote. “That is what I expected when I filed HR 236. I expected to have the opportunity to honor my former constituent and be met with the respect that moment commands.

“Our political backgrounds and beliefs may differ, but we cannot allow those differences to cross the line of common decency, especially when it comes to honoring the lives of those we have lost.” The political backlash to the resolution was so strong, Howard said, that Richards’ family didn’t feel welcome in the House Gallery that day to watch, as the families and loved ones of other honorees typically do. Resolutions don’t carry the weight of law, but they enshrine the chamber’s support for those who want to memorialize deceased Americans and celebrate living people who have made contributions to Texas and to the nation. A handful of Republicans objected to going on record with a “yes” vote to honor Richards — who died in January at age 67 — saying she symbolized the deaths of unborn babies. “We are a pro-life state that has passed legislation that lines up with our Biblical values, that says life begins at conception, and that is why we protect the unborn in this state,” said Rep. Nate Schatzline, R-Fort Worth. “And yet we have the audacity, as the Texas House, to bring forth a resolution that honors a woman that perpetuates the murder of children.”