"Protecting" Voting Rights by Not Voting
It's not all that unusual to see aristocrats run away from responsibility, but it's still fairly rare to see them be so openly smug and arrogant about it:
All sixty Texas Democrat representatives have fled the state on a chartered private flight in order to deny the Republicans (who all actually showed up for work) in Texas "quorum" to prevent a vote on voting law reforms. To my understanding, without at least 50% of the state's representatives present for a vote on a bill, the vote can't actually be done. The fleeing Democrats flew to Washington D.C. to proclaim victory (from a safe distance).
Meanwhile Texas Governor Greg Abbott has stated they'll all be arrested once they return to Texas, but since aristocrats rarely suffer any consequences for their actions, I find his threat less than credible. The law does indeed allow him to do this. It also allows him to call an emergency session, take all the representatives to the legislature (by force if needed) and lock the god damned doors until they've done their jobs. I'll be pleasantly surprised if he actually makes good on it. Seeing Texas state police drag their lazy asses back to the legislature and locking them in would be a delight.
There are other legal options available to the governor as well. He could simply vacate all sixty seats and call an emergency election to replace them all. That'd be pretty funny too.
The voting reforms in question are naturally deeply offensive to Team Blue since they routinely abuse our current elections process to cheat. The simple concept of requiring photo ID in order to vote (to prevent one person from voting multiple times) is considered a cardinal sin, which always cracks me up since states often require photo IDs for things as benign as fishing permits and nobody seems to be too concerned about that.
Still, I have some questions about this peculiar political maneuver.
- Who paid for that cushy chartered flight on a private jet and the (undoubtedly lavish) accommodations for sixty state congresscritters during their stay in DC? Since nobody in the press seems to have asked that question, I suspect the answer is "the taxpayers." I'm sure the average Texan is happy to be footing the bill for this excursion.
- Since they outnumber Republican representatives 60 to 40, why couldn't they have just voted "no" on the bill instead of literally fleeing the state to block its passage? It just seems so bizarre. They could have literally waited for the vote to be called, voted "no," and easily defeated the bill. Why didn't they do this? Maybe they just wanted to take a vacation on the taxpayers' dime.
- Why are they so openly arrogant and smug about this? This is mostly a rhetorical question – they're beaming because they legitimately think they're "winning" and they're mugging it up for their constituents – but seriously, who actually brags about ditching work? Anyone who isn't an aristocrat gets fired if they blow off work to take a vacation (even if they don't openly brag about doing it). It's good to be a king, I guess.
- Why are Democrat politicians elsewhere – including in DC (and including White House officials) – endorsing, supporting and even celebrating this behavior? Another rhetorical question. The answer is obvious – Republicans bad, Democrats good. When Republicans in Oregon did something similar a couple of years ago to stop actual corruption by the state governor, everybody booed and jeered. Now it's totally awesome. Hypocrites.
- Why weren't they wearing face masks on the flight? We lowly plebs have to; why don't they?
- How sad is it that very few people actually seem to care? We're so accustomed now to our elected officials being total scumbags that we aren't even surprised anymore when they pull stunts like this. We just sigh and go on with our lives because somebody has to get the real work done.
Sigh. I should just develop a drinking habit so stuff like this doesn't bother me anymore. It's not like anybody's ever going to fix it. 😢