Texas Vote Passing Abortion Bill Rendered Moot Eric Gay/Associated Press State Senator Wendy Davis started a filibuster at 11:18 a.m. Tuesday in the hope of holding the floor by talking until the Senate's special session ended at midnight. AUSTIN, Tex. - Hours after claiming that they successfully passed some of the toughest abortion restrictions in the country, Republican lawmakers reversed course on Wednesday and said a disputed late-night vote on the bill did not follow legislative procedures, rendering the vote moot and giving Democrats a bitterly fought if short-lived victory. Jennifer Whitney for The Texas Tribune A sonogram at the Whole Woman's Health Surgical Center in San Antonio, one of five Texas abortion clinics that would meet tighter abortion restrictions under a Texas bill. Opponents of the legislation said it would force 37 other clinics to close. The state Senate voted on the abortion bill at the end of a 10-hour-plus filibuster by a Fort Worth Democrat. But the vote came right at a midnight Tuesday deadline amid widespread confusion and the noise of a chanting crowd of the bill's opponents in an upstairs gallery. The legislative session expired at midnight, and Senate Democrats said the vote took place past the deadline at 12:02 a.m. or 12:03 a.m., while Republicans disputed those claims, saying the vote was legitimate. But at 3 a.m., Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst, the presiding officer of the Senate and a Republican supporter of the bill, told lawmakers and reporters that although the bill passed on a 19-to-10 vote, the bill could not be signed in the presence of the Senate and was therefore dead, blaming "an unruly mob using Occupy Wall Street tactics" as the primary cause. "With all the ruckus and noise going on," Mr. Dewhurst said, he could not complete administrative duties to make the vote official and sign the bill. Senate Democrats and women's right's advocates said the real reason the vote could not be made official was a time stamp on official documents that showed the bill passed after midnight. The Legislature's official Web site first posted that the Senate's vote occurred on Wednesday, after the midnight deadline, but the date was later changed to Tuesday for unknown reasons. The reversal served as an embarassing episode for Mr. Dewhurst and Republican senators on a divisive bill that was closely watched around the nation, both by anti-abortion activists and supporters of abortion rights. "The G.O.P. Senate leadership comes out of this whole process looking somewhat disingenuous, deceptive and disorganized," said Mark Jones, a political science professor at Rice University in Houston. In the final minutes before the midnight deadline, Republican senators had interrupted a filibuster that began at 11 a.m. But their attempts to push forward with a vote on the bill caused the bill's opponents in the gallery to erupt into screams and cheers. Attempts to bring about order failed. It was in those chaotic moments that Republicans initially said the vote was taken and the bill approved. But after hours of closed-door meetings, Mr. Dewhurst signaled defeat in passing the bill, and as word trickled out with the news, hundreds of the bill's opponents who had camped out in the Capitol rotunda and in the hallways erupted into loud applause. The bill sought to ban abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy, require abortion clinics to meet the same standards as hospital-style surgical centers and mandate that a doctor who performs abortions have admitting privileges at a nearby hospital. Supporters of the bill, including Gov. Rick Perry and other top Republicans, said the measures would protect women's health and hold clinics to safe standards, but women's right's advocates said the legislation amounted to an unconstitutional, politically motivated attempt to shut legal abortion clinics. The bill's opponents said it will likely cause all but five of the 42 abortion clinics in the state to close, because the building renovations and equipment upgrades necessary to meet the surgical-center standards would be too costly. Republicans, who control both the state Senate and House, will likely have a second chance at the bill. The governor, who called the special session and put the abortion bill on the agenda, may now call a second special session and once again tell lawmakers to consider the bill, known as Senate Bill 5. Political analysts said the bill will likely pass if a second special session is called, not only because of the large number of Republicans supporting it, but because the increased time will limit the delaying tactics that can be tried by Democrats. Manny Fernandez reported from Austin, and Erik Eckholm from New York.