Texas democrats fleeing again?

There they go again.

Once again, democrats in the Texas legislature have fled the state in order to deny republicans a quorum. At issue is the redrawing of congressional seats aimed at giving the republicans five new seats. Since this is not a census year, the redrawing is strictly for partisan reasons. The republicans are not denying it either. One legislator says “I’m not beating around the bush. I’m telling you that we have five new districts and these five new districts are based on political performance.” To create the five new Republican seats, the new map puts more Democrats into already Democratic-held districts and moves around Republican voters from red districts into Democratic districts. The redrawing will force some incumbent democrats to run against each other, put others into majority republican districts and was drawn in such a way to put Jasmine Crockett’s home residence into another district. I am sure that was just a coincidence. 

The democrats responded by fleeing to Illinois to be under the protective very fat wing of billionaire Governor Pritzker. Texas governor Abbott can levy fines of $500 a day or try to remove them from office. But Texas democrats running away is nothing new. In 2021 they fled to Washington, D.C., in an effort to block a bill on voting-by-mail rules. In 2003 the democrats again tried to block republicans from redrawing congressional districts. This time they fled to Oklahoma and New Mexico. In each instance, the democrats eventually came back with tails tucked between their legs and the legislation passed. This time will be no different. Why they went to Springfield, Illinois is anyone’s guess. Couldn’t they pick a better place – say Cancun? It is closer to home. Anyway, Illinois is a bad look. Don’t the Texas dems know that Illinois gerrymandered the republicans out of 2 seats four years ago?

The Texas republicans are saying that they are redrawing districts that make more sense geographically (wink wink) with them having more equal population. It merges two democrat districts in Austin and shifts the volatile Al (Full of Fire) Green into a republican-majority Hispanic district in Houston. I am sure that too was just a coincidence. Jasmine Crockett in her own immutable style says “They have decided that the only way that they can bring about this white supremacy agenda is by diluting the voices of people of color. And so what we have seen is, again, this rogue Department of Justice going out to do the bidding of this Temu Hitler. To the extent that he says, listen, the only way that I can ensure that I will have no checks on me is if I can sure that those voices of color do not have representation.” Temu Hitler? Now that is a new one. Isn’t Temu that online Chinese rival to Amazon? Well in street slang – of which Crockett is proficient – Temu “refers to the action of intentionally ignoring someone’s message. It is used in a dismissive or disrespectful manner when someone doesn’t want to acknowledge or engage with another person’s attempt to communicate.” Who knew? Also, advancing white supremacy by moving Green into a majority brown district? Well that’s novel.

Here is what Crockett said about Al (Full of Fire) Green “And so this is why we see Al Green…who has been a loud and proud voice of dissent against this administration, literally to his face at the State of the Union. And then again, by having the audacity to do what a lot of people had called for, which was to try to initiate the impeachment process. And so Al Green, who has served in Congress for over two decades at this point, is now at risk of losing his seat because those people of color in that particular district, they may now be broken out and parsed apart so that they don’t have this consolidation and this ability to elect Al Green.” Again, isn’t brown a color?

As to her district Crockett claimed that she was asked to verify her address alongside other incumbent Democratic members of Congress. She seemed puzzled by the request stating that she didn’t know why she was being asked because plenty of members (see Maxine Waters) did not live in the district that they represent. Article 1 Section 2 of the Constitution states that a representative must be at least 25 years old, have been a U.S. citizen for seven years, and, at the time of the election, be an “Inhabitant of that State in which he shall be chosen.” The key detail is that a representative must live in the state they represent and not the specific congressional district. Crockett is a lawyer and should know this. Accordingly, instead of being puzzled she should have just told the questioner to go pound sand. BTW, since the Constitution says “he” does that mean that all the women in the congress are there illegally? Just a thought. Of course the Declaration of Independence says “All men are created equal.” Does this imply that all women aren’t? I guess even then they realized there was a difference between Beyonce and Nancy Pelosi.