The Dirty 'RATS !
Posted on 05/11/2003 10:42:31 PM PDT by The South Texan
New 'killer bees' aiming to break legislative quorum
By Guillermo X. Garcia Express-News Austin Bureau
Web Posted : 05/12/2003 12:00 AM
AUSTIN — A group of Democratic House members, intent on breaking a legislative quorum, planned to leave Texas on Sunday night to hide out until the end of the week. If successful, the action will derail and likely kill major pending bills that have been termed a priority by the Republican—controlled legislature.
The action was taken as retaliation against the Republican leadership, one of the organizers said Sunday.
The GOP has 88 members, the Democrats 62. In major legislative battles thus far, Republicans have used their majority to aggressively push major legislation, such as the reorganization of state government, House Bill 2, and the school finance bill, House Bill 5.
Those and other Republican-promoted measures must pass out of the House and be sent to the Senate by Thursday or risk dying.
"We're leaving, and we'll stay gone till Thursday," one member from South Texas said Sunday evening. He asked that he not be identified.
The group planned to issue a news release this morning to explain its actions, sources said.
It is not clear how legislative leaders will react, but several of the legislators who planned to be absent said they were expecting the worst.
"I guess we will be called obstructionists, or maybe worse. But we are making a statement. If this is going to be the only way to stop bad legislation from being rammed down our throats, then so be it," the South Texas legislator said.
The unique parliamentary maneuver hasn't been used in 24 years and is likely to put pressure on legislative leaders, who have three weeks left in the regular session and major pieces of legislation still pending.
It was not clear late Sunday how many members were participating in the breaking of the quorum, as the action is termed. Nor was it known where they planned to hide out for the week.
It would require at least 51 members to be absent from today's session, scheduled to convene at 9 a.m., for House activity to be brought to a halt. Under legislative rules, the House cannot convene without at least two-thirds of the membership, or 100 members, present on the House floor.
The Democrats' move mirrors a similar action by a group of 12 Texas state senators 24 years ago this month, who defied then-Lt. Gov. Bill Hobby by refusing to show up at the Capitol.
The action of the "Killer Bees," as the dozen came to be known, provided a sea change within the Democratic party, which then controlled state politics as completely as Republicans do today.
The Killer Bees hid out in a West Austin garage apartment while Department of Public Safety troopers, Texas Rangers and legislative sergeants-at-arms unsuccessfully combed the state for them.
The current group of quorum-busters planned to leave the state to avoid having state police detain them and, if necessary, forcibly return them to the House floor.
"DPS or the Rangers can't exactly come get us if we are outside of Texas," another legislator said.
An early plan called for 10 groups of five members each to hide out around the Central Texas area. But over the weekend, the plan apparently changed, according to one of the organizers.
The revised plan called for the members to be picked up by a "team leader" and a "captain" at various locations around the state.
They then would meet at a central location, and the entire group would board a bus.
Some of the members then were to board a plane leaving from a Central Texas airport to rural Oklahoma, according to several sources. A separate group would fly to New Mexico, while a third group left by bus for New Mexico, the sources said.
"We were told to pack to be gone four days," one of the members said. "We were told who our team leader was, who would pick us up and where the pickup would occur, but that's it. We weren't told anything else — destination, how we would travel, no other arrangements were revealed to us. I guess (organizers) figured we can't say what we don't know."
In the 1979 incident that captured national media attention, Hobby was pushing a bill to require a separate presidential primary, which would have allowed conservative Democrats to vote in the Democratic primary for most races, then vote in a Republican primary to support former Gov. John Connally for president.
"Connally had just turned Republican after spending all his political career as a Democrat, including his stint as governor," recalled then-state Sen. Carlos Truan of Corpus Christi. "So we were not crazy about the idea of giving him a leg up."
Truan said Sunday that he and the other 11 senators were "very, very adamant" about their stand.
"We were quite concerned about how we were being portrayed," he said, "but I think history will show that we did the right thing."
The group was dubbed "Killer Bees" after Hobby declared, "you never know where they're going to show up next," former Sen. Ron Clower told the Austin American-Statesman in 1999.
Other accounts have Hobby saying the group was "about as useful as killer bees."
, The decision to hide out was made fairly quickly after one of the senators' aides agreed at a breakfast meeting at her home to let the legislators stay in an apartment in her detached garage.
"We were very concerned about getting caught by the DPS, but at the same time, it was kind of hilarious to watch some of the most powerful members of the Texas Senate, dressed in business suits, crawling on their bellies from the house to the detached garage apartment," Truan recalled, laughing.
The group managed to stay gone for four days, despite a widespread manhunt, and Hobby eventually gave in, withdrawing the measure from consideration.
The Killer Bees were greeted as heroes.
"We could not believe how many people turned out and cheered us," Truan said.
But Truan cautioned that such drastic tactics aren't for the faint of heart.
"They better be prepared to pay the political consequences for their actions, because there will be a hell of a price to pay," Truan said. "Breaking a quorum is a very, very major thing."
Three of his fellow colleagues should know. They were defeated for re-election as Ronald Reagan swept into the White House in 1980
Unfortunately, Lloyd Doggett, the ringleader of the Killer Bees, now proudly serves the Austin area in the U.S. Congress. Fortunately, the audacious antics of these leftist 'Bees' were a catalyst in the transformation of Texas politics from virtual one-party Democratic rule, to a rough balance, to GOP dominance. Thanks, Lloyd!
House Democrats walk out in protest
5/12/2003 9:34 AM
By: News 8 Austin Staff
Action in the Texas House of Representatives will come to a stop on Monday.
The House clerk?s office has received 51 absentee letters. With 51 members absent, the House does not have enough members to satisfy its quorum: two-thirds of all members must be there to conduct business.
Democrats have ?walked out? in protest over redistricting legislation.
Early reports say that the members plan to be absent for four days, which would effectively kill many key bills.
In Texas, they only get $6,000/year so that's not much incentive, especially when the DNC in fear of losing more seats in Congress will more than make it up to them.
The GOP has 88 members, the Democrats 62. In major legislative battles thus far, Republicans have used their majority to aggressively push major legislation, such as the reorganization of state government, House Bill 2, and the school finance bill, House Bill 5.
Those and other Republican-promoted measures must pass out of the House and be sent to the Senate by Thursday or risk dying.
"We're leaving, and we'll stay gone till Thursday," one member from South Texas said Sunday evening. He asked that he not be identified.
The group planned to issue a news release this morning to explain its actions, sources said.
It is not clear how legislative leaders will react, but several of the legislators who planned to be absent said they were expecting the worst.
"I guess we will be called obstructionists, or maybe worse. But we are making a statement. If this is going to be the only way to stop bad legislation from being rammed down our throats, then so be it," the South Texas legislator said.
The unique parliamentary maneuver hasn't been used in 24 years and is likely to put pressure on legislative leaders, who have three weeks left in the regular session and major pieces of legislation still pending.
It was not clear late Sunday how many members were participating in the breaking of the quorum, as the action is termed. Nor was it known where they planned to hide out for the week.
It would require at least 51 members to be absent from today's session, scheduled to convene at 9 a.m., for House activity to be brought to a halt. Under legislative rules, the House cannot convene without at least two-thirds of the membership, or 100 members, present on the House floor.
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