I am totally stunned by our complete victory last night. Oh, yeah, sure, that one in Washington DC was pretty good too, I guess.
But we won in BAKERSFIELD.
Follow below the orange oilspill for details.
Previously I wrote about the evolving (it certainly wasn't intelligently designed) anti-abortion-without-mentioning-abortion ordinance being considered by the Bakersfield CA City Council. If enacted, it would allow someone "aggrieved" by an abortion to sue, in civil court, anyone receiving a consideration for "killing" a human being (variously described in successive versions of the ordinance).
Would it allow relatives of a police shooting victim to sue the cops? Likely. Would it allow relatives to sue a doctor who followed a Do Not Resuscitate order in a hospital? Possibly. Would it allow a rapist to sue the pharmacist who dispensed a morning-after pill to his victim? In the twisted imaginations of the despicables pushing this measure, quite likely.
Emotion-choked ordinance proponent and "street preacher" Terri Palmquist laid out a personal argument for the ordinance. Her 20-year-old son's girlfriend is pregnant (unless I missed some nuance, out of wedlock) and should she choose to have an abortion there'd be nothing Palmquist could do about it. With the ordinance they favored, "it would have given me as grandma the right to call out the abortionist who is paid to kill human beings."
Her husband Tim Palmquist used his public comment time to vilify the ACLU, which had warned the City they would pursue legal action if an ordinance were enacted. He cherry-picked several cases to portray them as winning mainly by intimidation while fighting to put pornography in libraries. (Apparently a Washington case involving Internet filters which prevented an artist from viewing his own webpage online. The same filter also blocked a Jazz Orchestra website and ironically a website urging women not to have abortions but to carry the pregnancies to term.)
This is Bakersfield, where conservative Republican politics seems baked-in. I was cheered last month to report that the Council's legislative committee had voted (2-1) to reject all five versions of the ordinance proposed by Palmquist, who is a registered voter here despite actually living about a half-hour's drive away in a mountain community. Their anti-abortion tactics include photographing women outside the local Planned Parenthood office--which doesn't perform abortions--and posting them online presumably as a shaming technique.
The vote last month followed the City Attorney's advice that the City would likely get in legal trouble almost immediately should they pass a legally-binding measure. (When asked by a constituent which version was being considered, she exasperatedly replied "they're ALL unconstitutional.")
But as a substitute the attorney offered a watered-down "attaboy" resolution as a consolation prize. Even the sidewalk hecklers didn't want that, but I was resigned to its passage. "Forget it, Jake, it's Bakersfield."
Last night the full City Council before a packed audience overflowing into the lobby turned down even the "attaboy" resolution 5-2, and mandated that the issue cannot be re-examined without a majority vote of the seven-member council.
One up-and-coming Councilmember, Willie Rivera, reportedly wore a pink tie in support of the pro-women contingent in the audience and argued forcefully against the resolution, calling it divisive. On the losing side, a Councilwoman whose primary claim to fame has been getting "In God We Trust" placed on the walls of local government chambers, including the one this hearing was convened in, who argued for the doomed ordinance.
This was a progressive victory in a very regressive community. It's due to an ad-hoc group of local activists who used Facebook to organize and did the hard work of showing up to make their case.
Yes, it's possible. You CAN fight City Hall, and win.