The Texas Democrats are on the run again:
)–Senate Republicans urged their Democratic colleagues Tuesday to abandon their out-of-state walkout and work with them on a congressional redistricting plan.
“No Texas problem has ever been solved in New Mexico,” said Republican Sen. Todd Staples.
In a move reminiscent of a walkout by House Democrats 2 1/2 months ago, 11 of the state Senate’s 12 Democrats had fled Texas for Albuquerque, N.M., on Monday. The move they broke a Senate quorum and blocked consideration of the bitterly contested redistricting issue.
The Senate met briefly Tuesday morning but broke after a few minutes. Republican Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst said they would reconvene Wednesday morning. On the other side of the Capitol, the House met but also lacked a quorum, and the majority of absent members were Democrats.
Let them keep this up for as long as they want- they are signing their own political death warrants. The re-districting, which they may perceive as unfair, is going to happen- and Texas, no matter how much the Dems may hate it, is now a GOP stronghold. IN the next election, I bet a large number of these Dems are defeated- for being recalcitrant morons.
M. Scott Eiland
Is this governor stupid, or what? There should have been a Texas Ranger waiting on the doorstep of every Democratic legislator when the special session was announced, ready to escort the members to the state house to do their damned jobs. Letting the little weasels scatter again is nothing short of incompetent.
Watcher
This is just the latest example of the left’s political suicide.
JKC
M. Scott… sorry to bust yer bubble, but a Texas judge has told Gov. Goodhair that he can’t use the Rangers as his own Texan KGB.
Sorry the Dems won’t roll over and play dead for you…
M. Scott Eiland
Really? Do you have a cite? The articles I’ve seen only indicate that the Rangers can’t detain the legislators when they’re outside of Texas.
Oh well, there’s always bounty hunters–or the fugitives can stay away until the next election, when the voters can decide whether they want absentee representatives to continue to represent them. . .
The image of the Texas Democrats furtively looking around for bounty hunters for the next few months *is* worth the price of admission. . .:-)
Andrew Lazarus
My money is that none of the Democrats lose their seats. Tom DeLay has overreached. He could have made a reasonable map, and picked up three or four seats. Even though mid-decade redistricting is very, very unusual, one could see some justice.
Instead DeLay insisted on picking up seven seats, which requires crazy gerrymandered district boundaries, and gives the GOP 68.75% of the delegation, far MORE than their statewide totals.
When that wasn’t enough, he squeezed the Lieutenant Governor into abandoned a longstanding tradition requiring a 2/3 vote to consider bills in the State Senate. Comity between the parties means nothing to DeLay, who wishes to exterminate the liberals as he used to take on the termites, by any means necessary.
You guys are missing which way the pendulum is swinging.
Ricky
Every time I read about the delicate donks in Texas, I’m recall the old story “puss n’ boots”.
Andrew Lazarus
Say, who knew that in 2001 the REPUBLICANS in the Texas State Senate used the 2/3 rule (now unilaterally abolished) to block redistricting!? [link, scroll to “two-thirds rule”]
They paid a big price; they won the next election. We should be punished so bad.
tom scott
I got a chuckle out of Steve’s comment on Ravenwood.
“I hope they aren’t putting all these frequent flee-er miles on their government credit cards.”
link
Jonas
“the fugitives can stay away until the next election, when the voters can decide whether they want absentee representatives to continue to represent them”
Do you realize that in Texas the legislature is only in session for a few months a year? This year’s session ended a couple of months ago. The redistricting didn’t get passed in the regular session, and this is the second special session that the Governer ordered specifically to get the redistricting done.
ByronUT
I’ve been blogging on this issue for awhile. We certainly look at this from different perspectives, but I will say that the likelihood that any of the 11 Democratic Senators will lose re-election over this issue is very small. Of the 11 Democrats, 10 come from minority-majority Districts which are heavily Democratic. Most of them won uncontested in the general election in 2002. The only one of the 11 that had a competetive general election race in 2002 was Sen. Gonzalo Barrientos (D-Austin) who represents the only Anglo-majority district of the 11. He was arrested for a DWI in 2001 but still beat his Republican opponent by 10 points last November. Despite being outspent by a Dell multi-millionaire, Barrientos has remained pretty popular among Austinites.