(Some) Texas Democrats (Mostly The Women) Remember To Not Obey 'Let Us Take You Into Custody For Being Texas Democrats'
You want to actually kidnap them? Fine. They're still not signing your damn 'permission slip.'
And now let’s check in with Texas, where the Confederacy’s last stand is still standing, and Republican state Representatives are planning on barbecuing up some representative democracy, starting at 10 a.m. Central Time today. If you want to watch yourself, here’s a livestream that is supposed to work once they’re up and at it.
YESTERDAY!
As you’ll recall, the Texas House illegally gerryrigged their congressional maps on an off-year, to subtract five Democrats’ seats from Texas’s 38 congressional districts, then effectively hand those to Republicans. Those pasty ghouls had to find some way to rig the midterms and seize power for ever and ever, before voters figure out who’s been enshittifying their schools and public services! And then 51 Democratic state reps fled Texas, rather than give the Republicans a quorum so they could vote on their illegal map.
Then on Monday the Democrats returned to Austin and the state Capitol building, because according to Democratic caucus leader Eugene Wu, they felt they had made their point, and were also exhausted, and spending months in exile was “not reasonable.” Also, he’s heartened that the Fifth Circuit just struck down Louisiana’s vote-suppression maps, so maybe courts will save them. And also now other states are getting plans in place to pass their own off-year maps to erase the Republicans’ illegal seat gains, too, including a special session in California to get redistricting on the November ballot. So, time for this drama to move to another venue. Fair enough.
So most of the 51 returned, and then dickbag Republican Speaker Dustin Burrows immediately presented them with “permission slips” to sign, where they consented to a Department of Public Safety officer following them around at all times, and arresting them if they left town. If you have a cop with you at all times, preventing you from going where you want to go, how is that different from being in custody? If there’s no choice to but to sign or be imprisoned, how’s that any different from being kidnapped or held hostage, for that matter?
Rep. Nicole Collier of Forth Worth noticed that it’s not, refused to sign, got locked in the chamber, and also sent her lawyer to court to habeas corpus her involuntary detention. Other reps who did sign reported the officers creeping around behind them everywhere they went. For instance!
It doesn’t get any more police state than that, having one’s political enemies kidnapped and marched around like Elizabeth Smart on an errand with Wanda Barzee.
And then some of Collier’s fellow Democrats came to her side! State Reps. Mihaela Plesa, Morales Shaw, Rhetta Bowers, Cassandra Garcia Hernandez, Vincel Perez, and Salman Bhojani joined Collier and Wu on the floor overnight, and some of them tore up their permission slips too.
And the Capitol building was descended on by protestors, who’ve been making good trouble and getting arrested.
Oh, and Eugene Wu, YOU SCAMP! He has also filed to force a vote on an amendment to the new state congressional maps that would require a release of the Epstein Files before any new districts can go into effect. BRING IT!
We will keep you updated!
[Courthouse News / CNN / Guardian / Chron.]
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This whole Texas gerrymandering story has been reported on as if it is just another (admittedly unusual) political antic. It is not. This crap has to be treated as the thing it really is: the beginning of the destruction of the the republic.
Never a man. Nor a white man that they would even try to lock up. The racism is part and parcel of gerrymandering as we all know too well.