...and they're off.... again

Tom DeLay doesn't like the way Texas congressional districts are set up right now. He says they're drawn to give Democrats an advantage in gaining house seats, even though the state has been voting more and more Republican. This advantage is so bad and so unfair that right now, the Republicans hold the Governorship of Texas, and a majority in both houses. Gods forbid that the Democrats be allowed to keep that kind of power.

So, earlier this year, the Democrats in the Texas House of Representatives decided to try and stop the redistricting plan by taking off for a few days. By doing so, they deprived the House of enough members to form a quorum, which is required in order to vote on any measures. The Republicans worked themselves into a tizzy over that stunt, inappropriately made use of the Texas Division of Public Safety officers to try and track the Democrats down, got the FAA and even a division of Homeland Security involved and then had evidence of what they'd done shredded to make it harder to investigate.

The Democrats returned after the deadline had passed and the redistricting plan had been defeated. Or so we thought. Then the governor decided to call a "special session" of the state congress, specifically to work on the redistricting plan. It passed the House, but ran into a bit of trouble in the Senate, where a 2/3 majority have to agree to call a vote on a bill before it can actually be voted on. If more than 10 state Senators voted against calling it to the floor, it couldn't be voted on. Of the 11 Democrats in the State Senate, 10 of them made it clear they would not call for a floor vote on the measure, and when Bill Ratliff, an increadibly courageous Republican said he wouldn't vote for it either, the measure was defeated a second time, simply because there weren't enough votes to call it to the floor.

Well, this didn't go over good with the Republicans, so they've decided to call yet another "special session", and the leader of the Senate has declared that this time, he's just going to change the rules. Rather than the 2/3 majority needed to call an item to the floor for a vote, he's decided that a simple 50% +1 is all that's needed - which the Republicans can cover without any help at all from the Democrats.

But there's still the little matter of a quorum being required for the Senate to do anything. If they can't get 2/3 of the Senate to be physically present, they can't vote on anything, and this isn't a rule that the Senate president can just decide to change on a whim of things aren't going his way.

So, once again, Democrats are fleeing Texas - though its the Senate this time. Apparently, they've headed to New Mexico, which, the last time the Dems took off, indicated that they were welcome to take refuge there.

I really admire the Democrats for their willingness to stand up to the Republicans and their hardball tactics. Redistricting is typically done once a decade, following a census. Trying to do a second redistricting when we're only 4 years into the current decade is nothing short of a naked power grab. If a state redrew their districts everytime power changed hands, I doubt much else would get done (especially since it's not uncommon for redistricting plans to wind up in court to determine if they're legitimate and fair or not.)

To try and thwart this power grab, the Democrats have used extreme measures - fleeing the state - but they're measures that are legitimate and within the established rules for running the House and Senate. The Republicans, on the other hand, are now showing that not only are they willing to abuse the power they have (by misusing the state's Department of Public Safety as just one example), but now also by rewriting the rules in mid-stream when they legitimately lost the issue using the rules currently in place.

If this goes anything like last time, conservatives will likely throw a fit and try to portray the Democrats as cowards who aren't willing to face defeat like a man (or whatever the equivilent would be in today's modern cowboy parlance). Yet I think the Democrats are showing a significant amount of courage by being willing to face the ridicule of the nation's vocal and abrasive conservatives in order to prevent what they consider to be an unfair plan to redistrict the state.

I'm just not sure I want to see what happens next....