Several years ago the Dems in the Texas legislature all left the State and went to Oklahoma to prevent the presence of a quorum required for voting on bills. Very similar to what happened this year in Wisconsin and Indiana.
They spent a couple of weeks lounging around the pools and bars at their hotels/motels.
The Gov obtained warrants and Texas Rangers were used to force the Dems to return to Austin to do the jobs they were elected to do.
I don’t recall what the major issue was at the time.
The dims ran and hid during the redistricting battle. That is one reason I signed up on FR in 03.
I'd forgotten about that, thanks. The dems do get petulent when they can't have their way.
I wouldn't expect a Republican controlled legislature to behave like that, so I guess it would be a little easier to round them up this time around.
The truth of the matter is that the Rangers had nothing at all to do with the Chicken Democrats, aka the Killer D's returning to Texas from where they were holed up in Albuquerque, New Mexico for 48 days back in the summer of 2003 enjoying the protection of the New Mexico state police. Rep Tom Delay and NOT Rick Perry led the charge to have them arrested by FBI agents or U.S. Marshals but that didn't happen.
The Democrats' efforts collapsed when one TX state senator broke a self-imposed exile in New Mexico and returned to the TX Senate floor for the third special session. All the aforementioned facts are verifiable via Google searches on this subject.
The Gov obtained warrants and Texas Rangers were used to force the Dems to return to Austin to do the jobs they were elected to do.
They went out of state [New Mexico and Oklahoma] thus beyond the jurisdiction of the Texas law enforcement. Eventually they returned and redistricting was passed.