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Nebraska state lawmaker Machaela Cavanaugh (D.) says she will filibuster every piece of legislation this year because the legislature has advanced a bill that bans sex-change operations for children.
If the legislature does not withdraw the bill, “I am going to make it painful—painful for everyone,” Cavanaugh declared. “I will burn the session to the ground over this bill.”
Cavanaugh has succeeded in preventing lawmakers from making laws. As of Wednesday, “not a single bill will have passed,” the Associated Press reported, with Cavanaugh talking about “her favorite Girl Scout cookies, Omaha’s best doughnuts, and the plot of the animated movie Madagascar” to take up the legislature’s time.
Left-wingers have praised Cavanaugh’s obstructionism, with one LGBTQ activist describing it as “a heroic effort.” That praise is a far cry from what Democrats said as recently as last year. Politicians, including President Joe Biden, and progressive activists have blasted the filibuster, with Biden notably calling it a “Jim Crow relic.” One Democratic congressman said last year that the tactic is “killing children,” the Washington Free Beacon reported.
Cavanaugh’s filibuster, which she said is necessary to protect transgender children, comes after a whistleblower reported that a Missouri clinic commits “morally and medically appalling” practices on children who identify as transgender, “permanently harming the vulnerable patients.”
At least 21 other state legislatures have begun investigating the harms of sex-change operations on children. Republican Nebraska lawmaker Kathleen Kauth, who introduced the bill that Cavanaugh is filibustering, says the legislation will “protect children from undertaking gender-affirming treatments that they might later regret as adults,” the AP wrote.
Cavanaugh and her supporters “don’t want to acknowledge the support I have for this bill,” Kauth said. “We should be allowed to debate this.”
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