AUSTIN, Texas - By vanishing from the Capitol, by going on strike, Texas Democrats exposed themselves to ridicule. Republicans slapped their faces on milk cartons as if they were missing children. U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, a Republican, said the ploy - "to turn tail and run" - contradicts everything Texas stands for.
It was, said Republican Gov. Rick Perry, a "childish prank."
It was also a success.
For a second day, 51 Democratic legislators remained hunkered down in a small town in southern Oklahoma. They chatted with constituents who had made the drive from northern Texas to show their support, met to discuss school finance and other issues, and talked on their cell phones while wandering the grounds of a hotel.
For a second day, they prevented Republican leaders in the Texas House of Representatives from establishing a quorum, leaving a divisive legislative session at a standstill.
Far more important to the embattled Texas Democratic Party, however, was the sympathetic response it received across the state. Middle-of-the-road analysts and independent activists and lobbyists blamed the fiasco on conservative Republicans who have wrested political control of Texas.
In interviews, moderates and independents claimed yesterday that Texas Republicans were not forthcoming about their politics during last year's election campaign. Democrats failed to capture a single statewide election, giving the GOP control of the governor's mansion, the state Senate and the state House for the first time since the 19th century.
"But Republicans in Texas campaigned as moderates," said Samantha Smoot, executive director of the Texas Freedom Network, a nonprofit group that fights for religious freedom and "individual liberties." "They made a pledge that they wouldn't cut services to kids. And ... we have seen the exact opposite."
Republicans have proposed drastic cuts in social services, including removing 250,000 poor children from the Children's Health Insurance Program.
One contentious bill backed by the GOP gives social conservatives on the state Board of Education the ability to reject new school textbooks.
Democrats say what led them to boycott the Legislature was a proposal to reconfigure Texas' congressional districts, a proposal pushed by DeLay. Democrats hold a slim majority of the state's congressional seats, and the proposal would link far-flung regions of the state to allow the GOP to take as many as seven seats from Democrats in the next election cycle.
When the new districts were placed on the agenda Monday without a public hearing, 58 of the 62 Democrats in the House fled the Capitol, keeping the 88 members of the Republican majority from establishing a quorum. Democrats say they plan to stay in Oklahoma past a deadline tomorrow for most legislation to be sent to the Senate.
Using a provision in the state Constitution, Republicans dispatched the Texas Rangers and troopers to arrest the Democrats. But the Democrats remained at a hotel yesterday in Ardmore, Okla., where Texas' jurisdiction does not apply.
Scott Gold writes for the Los Angeles Times, a Tribune Publishing newspaper.
