Governor Abbott has plans for the escaped Texas Democrat representatives
Texas Governor Greg Abbott issued a statement warning Democrats who fled the state to deny a quorum for his redistricting push that they have until precisely 3 p.m. Monday to return to their House duties or face removal from office.
Abbott, in his statement, cites a 2021 Attorney General opinion (KP-0382) that could let him petition a court to declare their seats vacant. On top of that, he’s dangling the sword of felony charges, alleging their fundraising to cover $500-a-day fines might violate bribery laws.
One of the most repellent Democrat reactions to the redistricting plans of the Texas GOP is the old “now we’re going to have to take the gloves off!” response. In other words, Democrats ignore their own long long history of blatant gerrymandering and act like their hands have been clean in that regard, which is laughable. But it probably convinces those unfamiliar with history and facts, which these days is a very large group:
The proposed congressional map [in Texas] would be nowhere near as bad a gerrymander as the one in Illinois, where these clowns ran off to. So it’s very rich to see Pritzker [of Illinois] playing a role in this. Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) has also tried to put himself at the forefront of this fight, but again, this map would still give Democrats a higher number of seats compared to the state’s voter splits than California’s ridiculous map, which gives Republicans only nine seats. What’s happening is hypocrisy on steroids, with Democrats demanding the GOP live by a double standard whereby blue states can rig their maps to the max while holding a veto over the states in red maps.
Kate, I believe, made a similar point recently. States like Illinois are about as gerrymandered as they can be.
https://fivethirtyeight.com/videos/illinois-may-be-the-worst-democratic-gerrymander-in-the-country/
“Democrats ignore their own long long history of blatant gerrymandering and act like their hands have been clean in that regard, which is laughable. But it probably convinces those unfamiliar with history and facts, which these days is a very large group….”
Yes, this annoys me in a big way, as I was just effectively deprived of a representative because of court-ordered racial gerrymandering, resulting in a district with a truly bizarre shape. Yet in a couple of cases I know the people who believe this can’t really be described as “unfamiliar with history and facts.” They know a reasonable amount of both. They know about Democratic gerrymandering, they just don’t think there’s anything wrong with it. Whereas it’s a threat to Our (Their) Democracy when Republicans do it.
Considering the governing boobs in CA, IL and NY are all in a tizzy, I’m guessing this is existential to the jackasses.
they don’t care, why do you think they wanted HR 1, why is every major city in blue states falling apart, in nearly the same way, why did they let 14-20 million people into the country, while complaining about ‘climate change’ ostensibly those people would drain our resources would they not,
At this moment it’s an hour and 25min to go…It will be interesting to see what happens. I hope Abbot gives it to them good and hard.
just proceed without them, a quorum is those who show up, they’ve been playing this game since 2003, with another iteration in 2011, in Wisconsin,
of course they could turn violent, but that’s their default setting,
this was a large part of why they tried to impeach Paxton, with the possum (uniparty)
I believe Abbott has the constitutional power in Texas to declare the seats vacant if they don’t show up. That would make a quorum of the existing representatives possible, wouldn’t it?
Kate: from what I’ve read Abbott can instruct the Attorney General to start proceedings for a district court to make the decision of whether the seat is vacant. I don’t think any of this has been tried before. I do know that regardless of what happens Abbott can (and likely will) call a second special legislative session later this month, the Dems would have to do this play act all over again and maybe the second time wouldn’t go quite so nicely for them if they manage pulling off this stunt. Looking forward to 3PM CDT!
Logical and consistent application of principle is completely irrelevant to the Left, and most people in the middle tune this legislative process stuff out, and only old people are reading the newspapers or watching the news anyway.
I think that how this might or might not look to the public, is far less important than using the available levers to get the desired result. If the Governor has to kick people out of the legislature–I’m surprised that the Texas constitution has a mechanism for this but whatever–so be it. Let the legacy media say whatever they want however they want, they’re shouting at old people and the void.
US democracy is over.
You argue that it is fine for ‘red’ states to gerrymander the elections because ‘blue’ states are doing it. And they say the same only in reverse.
There is nothing you will not justify to do down the other side. All the good is on your side and all the evils of the world are on the other.
And of course they believe the same.
US citizens hate each other far more than anyone else.
If the democrats ever win again you will rerun the January 6th rebellion on a much larger scale. If the republicans never lose power again we can expect the same from the democrats.
US democracy is over. And a lot of republicans appear to want it preferring an authoritarian president to the separation of powers and rule of law given by the founding fathers.
But if you get out of your country you will find the rest of the world is gobsmacked by the direction you have taken. Presidential diktat from a man who burbles incoherent anger all day every day. A man who doesn’t understand science, maths, economics or basic good manners.
Your enemies are gleeful and your allies utterly shocked. But some of you think the EU, UK and Canada are your real enemies so I suppose there is no hope.
Speaking of “burbles incoherent anger,”
David Clayton calls whom he perceives the kettle black.
“Your enemies are gleeful…”
Especially Iran!
“…and your allies utterly shocked.”
Especially all those who’ve signed tariff agreements with Orange Man Insane, Grotesque And Despicable (OMIGAD)…as well as those who’ve—FINALLY—agreed to increase their budgetary commitments to NATO….
Welcome back! O Sage of…Whatever, Wherever…
(By the way—almost forgot!—the REAL enemies of THE PEOPLES of the EU, the UK and Canada are their current governments.)
I was just saying to myself, “Self, I could really use a foreigner who only sees events in my country–and his own–through carefully filtered state-owned media to tell me what is going on in my own country because my eyes just can’t be relied on.”
And David Clayton was there for me, bless his heart.
Oh noes…anyways (from your own countryman jeremy clarkson) matt goodwin is also a good window but most of the fishwrap which include the grauniad and even the torygraph are just embarassing
“US democracy is over.”
The US never had a ‘democracy’. We once had a robust Republic because both sides accepted that “politics stops at the water’s edge”. Both sides sought “a more perfect union”, we only disagreed on the policies to get to shared goals.
Though they pretend otherwise, since Obama’s call for “the fundamental transformation of America”, the democrats no longer support the principles upon which America was founded. And to seek transformative change through subterfuge, a sure indication of an inability to persuade and, to seek to impose change through deceitful indoctrination of the young is to engage in treason.
“A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself.” Marcus Tullius Cicero
Meanwhile california and illinois has gerrymandered themselves into oblivion and thats not metaphorical
When whole cities burn to the ground see los angeles
Cicero was prescient to a point the strongmen that started with marius ended with caesar but ultimately octavian took the big prize
Neo and others have pointed out that Democrats protesting gerrymandering in Texas fleeing to gerrymandered Illinois, is the height of lack of self-awareness. Or was that the height of hypocrisy? 🙂 Let’s put some numbers behind these statements.
From Wiki’s 2024 United States House of Representatives elections in Illinois, we find out that Democrats won 52.78% of the Illinois [that’s Ellanoy, say my Illinois relatives] 2024 Congressional vote. Democrats won 14 of 17 Congressional seats in Illinois, which is 82.4% of the Congressional seats there. That suggests a “Gerrymander-factor” of 29.6 (% seats-% vote) in Illinois.
Similarly,Wiki tells is in 2024 United States House of Representatives elections in Texas that Republicans won 58.41% of the Texas 2024 Congressional vote. Of the 38 Congressional seats for Texas, 25 are Republican, giving Republicans 65.6% of Texas Congressional seats. The proposed redistricting would, I have read, result in 30 seats going to the Republicans—78.9% of Texas’s Congressional seats. The proposed redistricting would suggest a “Gerrymander factor” of 20.5 for Texas, which is considerably below the current “Gerrymander factor” of 29.6 for Illinois.
David Clayton:
Well, well, well, if it isn’t our old friend from across the pond, come to enlighten us all with his spectacular insight on matters about which he knows precious little.
Gerrymandering has a lengthy history in the US and does not signal the end of “democracy.” In fact, it’s usually legal and both sides indulge in it at times. The Democrats, however, tend to be far more extreme about it, and the objection to what they’re doing now is that they’re pretending they don’t do it and that only the GOP does. The hypocrisy of the Democrats is overwhelming.
If I were you, I’d spend more time on the problems of your country, which seems to have finally given up on liberty – freedom of speech and freedom of protest – and whose PM has announced he will reward some of the most vicious terrorists who ever existed.
Does Clayton live in one of the future “stans” of Europe?
European leftist : ” We are so enlightened we want to replace our own people.”
David Clayton’s handlers should supply him with less predictable talking points.
But of course the uk has no bill of rights no first amendment or second or probably third actually much like oceania
Why do i think he would take the side of o brien rather than winston smith
The european court of human rights actually upheld many of the practices against the ira that tells you most everything
Hey Clayton,
The ultimate gerrymandering is when your European governments decided to replace their own people with foreigners.
I’d have to look up the figures, but I believe in David Clayton’s England, Labour enjoys a large majority in Parliament on about 30% of the vote. He’s throwing stones from a glass house.
Warrants have been issued for the AWOL Ds. Go get ’em!
It is pretty clueless for a (purported) subject of a constitutional monarchy, to criticize citizens of a federal republic, for no longer being a democracy, when in reality neither entity has ever been either.
Neither the King, nor the Prime Minister, nor the House of Lords is democratically elected.
“Democracy”, like Orwell said about “fascism”, is a word that the Left has drained of all meaning.
The definitions we learned in (roughly) third grade about “democracy” vs “republic” are too simplified to mean much, though. In modern times a nation described as a “democracy” is invariably a representative democracy, which in third-grade social studies we learned to call a “republic”. If we apply the third-grade definitions there isn’t any nation that counts as a “democracy”, which seems kind of absurd, like saying that the USSR wasn’t “Communist” .
Regardless I don’t think the word is a good fit for the US as a federal republic, or for the UK as a constitutional monarchy.
David Clayton, the concerned conservative troll from Grate Britain, returns spouting eurotrash mush.
Which faction will he align with in the expected Great Britain civil war?
om:
France.
Texas governor orders police to find and arrest Democrats who fled over redistricting
Texas House Republicans on Monday voted 85-6 to authorize the House sergeant-at-arms and related officers to track down and civilly arrest Democrats who fled the state in protest of GOP redistricting efforts.
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/showdown-texas-abbott-threatens-democrats-fled-protest-redistricting/story?id=124343408
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Woo-hoo!
It ain’t over ’til it’s over, but Abbott wasn’t bluffing.
Next step taken. Ball in Dems’ court.
I heard Trey Gowdy on the Guy Benson radio show today. The gist of his comments was that Abbott will be hard-pressed to bring these scallywags to justice, though he may be able to make them feel some pain. He said that if the legislators were removed, their replacements (from Dem districts) would also be Dems. And he said the issue would end up in court. Oh, joy!
My an impressive set of replies. For all those having a bash at UK democracy with its many limits and frailties I guarantee that when Starmer loses the next election he will put all his crap in a van and leave.
Can you say the same about Trump?
Starmer is only PM because the Conservative Party made a stupid mistake and let the populist right take over the party. The moronic and economically damaging decision to leave the EU was just the start of a period of utter chaos. Johnson and Truss were the second worst and worst PMs we ever had. As a result the people dropped a lot of anger on Sunak and out we went.
You might not like our bizarre old system with a monarch and an unelected second chamber but the way things are looking it will last longer than your Republic.
You all appear incapable of facing up to the fact the US is falling apart and start the ad hominem stuff and banging on about great replacement theory.
Do any of you in your hearts believe the union will still be there in ten years time?
Will California and Texas be on the same side?
How much longer will you be able to add another couple of trillion dollars to the debt to pay for the most powerful military in the world without showing any signs of paying it back. What on earth was the point of DOGE if all you intend to do is borrow more?
And when the dollar ceases to be the reserve currency, as all those countries being slapped with tariffs are surely planning, where do you think your economy will be? How will you be paying for your debt?
Clayton the drooling paid trolling fraud whines about “democracy” in the US but is jim dandy with the ongoing repression of free speech in Britain, not to mention Muslim rape gangs getting away with it which he approves wholeheartedly.
@FOAF I am quite happy to discuss the UK with you sometime but the post was about gerrymandering US democracy. I imagine you are fine with it as long as your ‘side’ win….
And if anyone wants to pay me to write these old man whinges PayPal will be fine 🙂
@David Clayton:when Starmer loses the next election he will put all his crap in a van and leave.
Can you say the same about Trump?
Trump is not up for election again, but when he DID lose he DID leave, so yes, we can all and did all say “the same” about Trump. Maybe you are too young to remember 2021.
the post was about gerrymandering US democracy.
Gerrymandering is in its third century. The word was coined in 1812. It has a much longer history than the current method of populating the House of Lords or the UK Supreme Court. I think US democracy is robust enough to handle it, it having been a feature of US democracy for 90% of the time the US has been under the 1789 Constitution and is an accepted part of how electoral politics works here.
Do any of you in your hearts believe the union will still be there in ten years time?
Yes. it has survived much worse internal strife. At some point you must have heard the name “Abraham Lincoln” and maybe you’ve heard of Ulysses S. Grant or Robert E. Lee but you know so little about the US, as judged by your comments, that I can’t assume that you have.
I am quite happy to discuss the UK with you sometime
You know so little about the US I’m not sure you’d be reliable on the UK.
“they don’t care, why do you think they wanted HR 1, why is every major city in blue states falling apart, in nearly the same way, why did they let 14-20 million people into the country, while complaining about ‘climate change’ ostensibly those people would drain our resources would they not”
As is often the case, miguel nails it.
The Dem party cares about one thing, and one thing only: power. There are no means too dastardly to use in pursuit of that power, as long as they can get away with it. Bending rules, breaking rules, getting judges to rule in their favor, lying, cheating, stealing – ethics do not matter.
The sooner Americans come to grips with this, the better.
“Yes. it has survived much worse internal strife. At some point you must have heard the name “Abraham Lincoln” and maybe you’ve heard of Ulysses S. Grant or Robert E. Lee but you know so little about the US, as judged by your comments, that I can’t assume that you have.”
I’m not sure that strife was worse, at least from the outside looking in. Back then, when honest men had disagreements, they put them on the table and fought them out. Yes, the Civil War was horrible, but it was just that – a fight to win for a side.
Today? One side lies about the other and propagandizes, all to hide what their real intentions are: pure, unadulterated power for its own ends. If Trump hadn’t won this last election, I don’t know that the country could have lived another 10 years without becoming a socialist hellhole. We were well on our way there, and we’re still not out of the woods.
After the Civil War, the US bounced back. If we continue the route we are going on at any time in the future, I don’t think there is any bouncing back.
It isn’t gerrymandering itself that’s the issue: as Nikitas pointed out, that’s in its third century. Doing so in 2025 rather than waiting until 2030? That’s a new practice.
Typically, Congressional maps are redrawn at the beginning of every new decade when the new census comes out. But now one state is redrawing the lines in mid decade while every other state is expected to wait until 2030, so New York, California, Illinois, etc. are saying “If Texas can redraw, then we can redraw.” If this keeps up, then both parties will be redrawing the lines every two years, leading to chaos.
@Bj:Doing so in 2025 rather than waiting until 2030? That’s a new practice. Typically, Congressional maps are redrawn at the beginning of every new decade when the new census comes out.
It is not a new practice. Too many exceptions. Courts, for example, have intervened in plenty of non-decade years. Louisiana is potentially facing its third redistricting in three elections.
Anyone wanting to see the last redistricting bill from the IL House in 2021 that redrew the statehouse maps to increase Dem power, just search on the term “partisan,” and you will clearly see over and over again that they redrew maps to give themselves better partisan advantage, mainly in swing districts that used to go R, then went strong D, particularly in the collar county suburbs such as DuPage, so that the D party has legislative supermajorities, in a state that is at best 45/55 R/D. https://www.ilga.gov/documents/legislation/102/HR/10200HR0359.htm
So yeah, cue up the smallest violin for Dems in Texas.
A rather pitiful syme the toady who was still devoured by the ministry of love like the mensheviks trotskyites and average russians
Thd byzantine thought patterns we see in the grauniad prospect or other outlets are baffling
Unless you know their mo then it makes perfect sense
Mr. Clayton’s aptly self-described whinging isn’t really worth arguing with. But it’s an instance of a puzzling phenomenon: the person who jumps into some online political forum with which he fundamentally disagrees and picks a fight with the natives. He certainly isn’t going to change their minds and seems mainly intent on insulting them and their views.
WHY does anyone do this? I would never go to, for instance, the Daily Kos and start denouncing progressives. Why would I want to spend my time doing that? I have a left wing friend who does it, deliberately picking fights with right-wingers, and it really puzzles me. I suppose it comes down to the fact that they get some kind of pleasure from it. Seems somewhat pathological. Definitely is in my friend.
Lefty blogs have little tolerance for dissenters they follow a soviet praxis about free speech the converse is not true there was at least three trolls on a favored blog i frequented for the span of decade
One was a lecturer on anarchism at a college (who didnt know much about anarchist) one was a book editor with some publishing company the third was just a pest without a particular skill set
There has been plenty of discussion of the topic here “David Clayton” but it never bothered you enough to get outraged. As always you are a fraud and a compulsive liar.
By the way has there ever been a phonier sock puppet name than “David Clayton”? Did they get it from a Blood Sweat and Tears album?
Mac- “WHY does anyone do this”
Leftists do it because they get a kick out of disrupting right wing discussions. I realized early on that maybe not all but a large number of the “trolls” were likely not individual dissenters but rather paid operatives or at least dispatched. During one of her Presidential campaigns Hillary had an operation laughingly called “Correct the Record” which was a group of her campaign workers doing that. Soros could support a fleet of these feckless nitwits for the fraction of the cost of a single DA race.
With apologies to feckless nitwits for comparing them to “Clayton”.
David Clayton fancies Rishi Sunak, Boris Johnson, Theresa May, and David Cameron are manifestations of ‘the populist right’. Or he fancies he can sell that to us.
The moronic and economically damaging decision to leave the EU was just the start of a period of utter chaos.
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It wasn’t economically damaging, it wasn’t ‘moronic’, and the only chaos you’re suffering is derived from your government refusing to close the borders to randos wandering across, refusing to enforce the law impartially, and threatening people over their tweets.
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