Q&A: Former Texas state senator Wendy Davis

FormerTexas state senator and former Texas Democratic gubernatorial candidate Wendy Davis gave a public lecture on campus on Wednesday addressing her recent campaign and women's rights. Before the lecture, Davis sat down with The Daily Princetonian to discuss her famous filibuster, abortion laws in Texas and stereotypes women face when entering politics.

The Daily Princetonian: To start off with, what were you like as an undergraduate?

Wendy Davis: I was working and raising children so I had a unique experience as an undergraduate but I was very, very focused on getting my degree and making my way to law school. So I didn’t do a lot of the typical things that a student would do. I didn’t participate in the student community really, I was more like a commuter student who came to campus each day and put my head down and did what I needed to do to graduate. I started in community college and I did two years there in a program to become a paralegal before I decided to shift my focus and try to become a lawyer instead.

DP: What motivated you to want to become a lawyer?

WD: I felt like it was a skill that I was suited for. I enjoyed writing, I consider myself to be a fairly analytic person and this was in the day of California… in the day of L.A. law. You probably don’t even remember that, but it was really exciting to think about being in that environment.

DP: What is your most unusual habit?

WD: Goodness. Most unusual habit. I can’t think of anything unusual I do. I must be so boring. I like to watch the same movies over and over and over again. I’ve watched "Out of Africa" at least 20 times. So if I’m inspired by a movie or a book, I’ll read the book over and over, I’ll see the movie over and over.

DP: Describe a widespread misconception about you.

WD: People who know me well or who have gotten to know me well after they knew me in the public eye have said that they are surprised to see how kind and soft and loving I am. I think sometimes as a woman, when you’ve taken some tough stances and you’ve been in the public eye and you’ve been assertive, you are viewed as not necessarily having that softer feminine side. But I’m a very, very nurturing person, a very nurturing mother, nurturing with my girlfriends and other relationships. I think people who don’t know me well might be surprised to see that very soft side of me.

DP: What elements of Texan culture do you strongly identify with?

WD: The spirit of independence. The idea that we all are free to make our own choices. That freedom isn’t necessarily as well respected as I wish it were, but it’s a deeply respected Texas value. We are very proud people and we are very friendly people. Texans are extremely gregarious with each other. I’ve found on my travels, for example, when I went to law school and it was at Harvard and I would get on the bus and I would talk to people. Or I would get on the train and talk to people. And people would say, "You’re not from here are you?" And I think it’s a uniquely Texas trait, that we are very outgoing and that very friendly and I certainly identify with that.

DP: Moving to the famous filibuster that you staged in Texas, what did you find wasthe most challenging aspect of staging that 13 hour filibuster?

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WD: The length of time itself wasn’t nearly as challenging as the climate of parliamentary disorder that I experienced. In the Texas senate, filibusters are very highly respected, because a Texas filibuster is a true filibuster, unlike one in the U.S. Senate, where they can take turns and they can leave the lectern. In Texas, you must speak the entire time although you can take questions. You have to stay on topic. You cannot eat or drink or lean on your desk or leave to go to the bathroom. And so it’s a true test of physical and mental endurance. And because of that, on both sides of the aisle, if a senator conducts a filibuster in Texas, it’s been met with incredible respect even if there are some folks in the chamber who disagree with the person who is conducting the filibuster. I expected that I would get less respect than typical,but I was surprised at the efforts, in a parliamentary maneuver, to shut the filibuster down.That had never happened in Texas political history before and I hadn’t expected the mental acuity that it was going to require of me the entire day to try and jump through the parliamentary hoops that the Republican members kept throwing for me to jump through.

DP: What changes to abortion laws do you hope to see in the coming years and why?

WD: Well certainly for my state, I would like to see us unwind the changes that were made in 2013. And those changes, of course, were very specifically aimed at closing clinics and closing women’s access to abortion. It’s my opinion that because many who oppose abortion understand that they’re not likely to change the constitutional protection for abortion, they have determined other ways to try to close access to abortion for as many people as possible and limit that choice for as many people as possible. What’s happened in my state is that many, many women, particularly low-income women in areas of our state that no longer have clinics because they were closed as a consequence of this law, they’ve literally been put in danger. Their health is at risk. If they are experiencing an unwanted pregnancy and don’t have a legal option for termination, the fear of course is that they will turn to other options that will put them at risk. The other thing that has been a consequence of the abortion law in Texas and I’m sure elsewhere is that many of the clinics that we closed as a consequence of that law were also providingwraparound services [care management for serious behavioral and emotional problems]for women. They were providing cancer screenings andwell women health careand they were the only providers that were giving that to the women of many of the communities in our state, and when they closed as a consequence of the anti-abortion law, it created a climate where women no longer have access to contraception, they no longer have access to cancer screening or to blood screenings that might help them to know they have diabetes, and women truly are being put at risk because they have no other options to receive that care.

DP: What lessons from raising your daughters do you apply to your political work?

WD: When you raise children, you find pretty quickly that there's no such thing as black and white. The gray bit teaches us to consider the world through that spectrum as well, to appreciate opposing perspectives and to try to find middle ground. Parenting in large part is about doing that, finding respect for your children's differing ideas about what they may want for themselves and what you may want for them and finding a way to compromise and seek consensus with them. As a political leader, the same has been true for me. Though I've taken some pretty hard-line positions in things that matter deeply to me, I've always prided myself in working across the aisle and being one of those legislators who is in the small room getting things done, meeting in the middle with people on the opposite side of the aisle. I think it's an incredibly important and sadly rare, more and more rare, quality for politicians.

DP: As a politician, how have you battled the stereotypes that often prevent women from entering or participating in politics?

WD: I just put my head down and do my work. I wrote a memoir recently titled "Forgetting to be Afraid," which is something Lady Bird Johnson said when she was asked about how she overcame her extreme shyness to work on things that mattered to her. And what she told people was that you have to get so wrapped up in something that you forget to be afraid. And I found that to be so true, that sometimes when we can be so overwhelmed by what the battle looks like or afraid of losing or what the scrutiny might be that we come under for taking political positions, but if we care deeply about something, we have to set our concerns aside about whether this will be good for us and we have to fight for the things that matter to a broader population outside of ourselves. I found that that's been very helpful to me. If I listen to my heart and my gut, I have found a much greater courage than I otherwise would.