One Texas Senate Democrat is taking drastic measures to ensure her filibuster of the state Republican redistricting plan is successful.
Democratic state Sen. Carol Alvarado is using a catheter to urinate into a urine bag, which will be hidden by a long dress she plans to wear. She also received an IV infusion to hydrate herself before the marathon filibuster attempt.
Texas Republicans are trying to pass their redistricting plan after the state’s Democrats recently returned from their mass exodus to deny their opposition a quorum. The state’s Senate Democrats are the Democratic Party’s last line of defense, outside of legal challenges, to the new map.
Alvarado, 57, is the minority leader of the Texas Senate and has served in the state’s upper chamber since 2018. Before that, she served nine years in the Texas House and several years as a city councilwoman for Houston.
Alvarado says she’s been preparing to filibuster “for a few days.” She last attempted a filibuster in 2021, which lasted 15 hours and 7 minutes, the longest in the state’s modern Senate history.
But this one could be even longer, with Alvarado saying she will try to filibuster “as long as I can stand.”
