… Hits Dems in Solar Plexus: How it Affects Us

“More than 50 House Democrats were holed up in a motel across the state line in Ardmore, Oklahoma, out of reach of state police, whom the House’s Republican majority has ordered to bring them back to Austin. The Democrats are hoping to thwart what they call an “undemocratic, unjust, and unprecedented” GOP redistricting plan that could cost them five seats in Congress”
- from CNN

“Dear Kitty,

We hear the sounds of soldiers below, and we try not to make a noise. Oh, Kitty, I’m so scared.”

- from the Diary of Annabelle Frank (D-Houston)

The story of Texas democrats fleeing the state, and their possible arrest is, of course, inherently funny. Sadly, it doesn’t need much help from satirists to get laughs.

What’s really sad is the cause is going to get lost in the fun over the effect. Although Texas was redistricted only a couple of years ago, “Jim Ellis, an aide for DeLay and executive director for Americans for a Republican Majority, worked behind closed doors with Republican state lawmakers to draw a map that prompted Monday’s walkout by the Democrats.”

That’s, um -what’s the word? - insane. Redistricting is always odd and complicated and partisan. So odd that it baffles the general public; so complicated that even reporters don’t really know what to say about it; so partisan that really paying attention to it can make you question whether there’s really much value in such things as “political parties. ” Or “democracy.” Or “mankind.”

But this particular move is so outrageous that you have to tip your hat to Tom DeLay, if only for his ability to remain ambulatory while burdened with balls of such a stupefyingly huge size and weight. You’d think he’d need a specially designed Segway simply to transport such mammoth cojones across the House floor.

To put it as simply as possible: There are little grounds for redistricting right now (it’s scheduled to happen next in 2010), there’s no pretense that such a move has any purpose but to favor Republicans in the 2004 Congressional elections, and there have been no attempts to allow Democrats a voice in finding a mutually acceptable compromise. Republicans in the Texas state legislature merely want Democrats to show up so that there’ll be a quorum and the vote can proceed. Oddly, the Democrats have shown some reluctance to participate in their own political slaughter.

When should redistricting happen in Texas? Why, it should’ve happened in 2001. A court had to do it, eventually, because nobody could agree. Sad, but that’s how it works. But now the Republicans have a healthy majority in the state legislature, so they have the muscle to demand and force through a do-over.

And 53 democrats fled to Ardmore, Oklahoma, and the Texas cops are authorized to arrest any truant Democrats that they find inside the state. And that’s kinda funny. So funny, Texas Republicans are hoping, that nobody’ll notice the horrifying seriousness. Democracy falls down on a whoopee cushion. It’s like giving a cancer patient silly hats, funny makeup and sneezing powder - he might die, but he’ll die funny.