I'm not going to dig up links for this (although Josh Marshall has most of 'em), but here's a summary of the new situation in Texas, bullet-pointed so you can explain it to your parents:

1) The redistricting effort fails in the House because the Democrats run to Oklahoma and prevent a quorum.
2) It comes up for approval in the Senate.
3) The Republican majority leader says he'll honor a tradition that requires a 2/3 majority for passing redistricting.
4) The effort fails, due to Republican defections.
5) The majority leader says that, um, he just meant he'd honor the tradition that one time, and should they happen to take another vote, well...
6) The governor calls a special session of the Senate to vote again, with only a simple majority required this time.
7) A bunch of the Democratic senators run to New Mexico to prevent this special session from taking place.
8) Meanwhile, a judge rules that using the DPS to track down the Democrats in Oklahoma was illegal. So...
9) The Texas governor announces he'll use private bounty hunters to get the Democrats back from New Mexico. (Insert Bobba Fett joke here.)
10) The Texas Attorney General says that sounds like a fine idea. (Josh comments that it's an "idea you can certainly understand since bounty-hunters are such an upstanding and constitutionally-minded group of characters.")
11) The New Mexico governor (a Democrat) says he'll issue a state police detail to protect the Texas Democrats and will prosecute bounty hunters for kidnapping.

It's not quite as funny as what's happening in California--seeing as how Larry Flynt might be running for governor--but it is a lot more encouraging.
posted by Mike B. at 5:58 PM 0 comments