A while back, I had a series of posts (one, two, three, four, five, and six) about the "Democratic" Texas House representatives who bolted when they couldn't stop GOP forces from a redistricting effort.
Now that a special session has been called to attempt an effort once more, guess who's engaging in more childishness?
"Democtratic" Senators.
Texas Democrats taking refuge in New Mexico exchanged bitter words with Republicans at home on Wednesday as a stalemate over a Republican grab for more seats in the U.S. Congress turned nasty.[...]
There were no formal talks under way to end the impasse that sent 11 Democrats in the Texas Senate scurrying to neighboring New Mexico on Monday to stop passage of a Republican-backed plan to redraw the state's congressional districts.
News reports said the Democrats may take legal action to clear the way for their return, but they would not confirm that.
Their departure meant the Senate did not have the quorum needed to conduct business and stopped a vote on the plan which likely would add seven Republicans in Congress. Democrats in the Texas House of Representatives fled to Oklahoma for four days in May for the same purpose.
Texas police cannot get the senators in New Mexico and until they return, the senate can do nothing.
Two things:
The Dems are fucking cowards who turn their backs on the very tradition (democracy) they wish to uphold. If they can't block, stall, or kill legislation because they don't have enough votes, then THAT'S TOUGH SHIT. It's what it means to be in the minority. I don't like this system, but if they say that's the process they want the country to follow, then gawddamn it, FUCKING FOLLOW IT.
The GOP'ers leading this fight are impatient fuckwads who want to consolidate their grip on power. That alone is something to be worried about, but it's even worse (and pathetic) that they're bending backwards up their own asses to get this crap pushed through. Give! It! Up!
The whole underlying principle behind redistricting, quorums, and our system of government is majority rule. Ultimately, what a majority wants the majority gets...provided they push hard enough for it. Of course, that means "they can vote themselves largesse" from the pockets of others and impose immoral restrictions on human behavior...all in the name of collective rights.
But, the reality we face now is how to best get our government to work while doing what we can to cut it back. I don't have an answer for that in regards to citizen representation yet. I need to give it more time.
UPDATE(8/7/2003 7:10am)
News from the National Conference of State Legislatures isn't pretty.
In such an environment [one where the participants believed that states are currently facing a "revenue crisis" rather than a "spending crisis"], a liberal Democrat would naturally feel quite comfortable. One such Democrat was Elliot Naishtat, a state legislator from Texas. In a roundtable discussion about human services policy in tough budget times, he bemoaned the fact that recent Republican-imposed budget cuts in Texas had undone 10 years of his good work. Naishtat went on to praise the Texas Democrats' "creative use of the rules" to thwart the redistricting plan. He also made a not so veiled threat: He "wouldn't say that [the Democrats] would use similar strategies for dealing with future budget cuts," but his party was "looking at interesting sites" to visit.
UPDATE(10/12/2003 9:33pm)
Big News: a plan has been finalized and passed by both the House and the Senate.
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Moral of the story: Partisan Politics are stupid. There should really be some sort of standard preventing idiots like these from doing this sort of thing, though... if they voluntarily leave, their votes should be forfeit.
Posted by: APF on July 31, 2003 11:35 AM