"Game Over Man, Game Over"
By Jim Dallas
The Dallas Morning News has the scoop (as does the Statesman and the Chronicle):
The renegade Texas Democrats decided late Monday to leave the New Mexico hotel that they've made their home for the last six weeks and to come back to the state for a court hearing Thursday before returning to their homes.
"We will say goodbye to the great people of New Mexico, probably on Wednesday, and then we will be in court on Thursday" in Laredo, said Sen. Leticia Van de Putte of San Antonio, chairwoman of the Senate Democratic caucus.
The runaway senators had vowed to stay out of Texas until another redistricting session was called and a quorum established on the Senate floor. However, Ms. Van de Putte said, the decision last week of Houston Democrat John Whitmire to return to Texas changed the other Democrats' thinking.
They will still stay out of Austin until Mr. Whitmire helps the Republicans reach the 21-member quorum needed to do business but will return to their families in Texas, she said.
The problem now seems to be with intra-party feuding in the GOP over how to redraw the lines in West Texas and elsewhere.
The future of the two-thirds rule also hangs in the balance.
Although there are still a few tricks up the Democrats' sleeve:
Gallegos said it may be impossible to stop a redistricting bill in a third special session, but he joked that Sen. Gonzalo Barrientos, D-Austin, might be able to do so with a filibuster.
"Gonzalo's still got a filibuster in him," Gallegos said. "I don't know if it's a 30-day filibuster. We may have to prop him up."
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Kuff has a good post on this also.
Posted by Jim Dallas at September 9, 2003 12:04 PM
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