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05/15/2003 Archived Entry: "Texas Democrats flee to Oklahoma -- Homeland Security is on the Case"

SO THESE TEXAS DEMOCRAT LEGISLATORS ARE HOLED UP IN OKLAHOMA. They've fled the state not on any issue of principle (of course), but simply because they don't like a Republican re-districting plan. (Somehow they consider it perfectly reasonable for the R's to have to put up with a D re-districting plan. You figure it out; I can't.) Their aim is to prevent a quorum so the R's can't finagle some Dems out of their jobs. Texas law lets the Department of Public Safety round up recalcitrant legislators in that circumstance, and the Texas Rangers have been aggressively on the case -- questioning one legislator's teenage daughter and even staking out a neo-natal unit where another's newborn twins are in intensive care.

Okay, let them play their silly games. But now the R's are trying to involve the FBI. And the Department of Homeland Security has already gotten involved, which is how they discovered the whereabouts of the Funny Fugitives in the first place.

At first, I thought that was creepy. But I was wrong. For the security of the people, the DHS could have no higher mission than arresting politicians. Just too darned bad the aim is to put them back to work.

Posted by Claire @ 09:12 AM CST
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