The Eyes of Texas — AND the Department of Homeland Security

Posted on May 14, 2003 in Courage & Activism

Fifty three dissident lawmakers left the state of Texas rather than helplessly watch as Republican lawmakers gerrymandered the state’s Democratic majority out of due representation. They went to New Mexico and to Oklahoma where they were beyond the reach of Texas law enforcement. The governor of Oklahoma refused to grant the Texas Rangers authority to arrest a clutch of representatives hiding out in Ardmore, Oklahoma. New Mexico is “researching” the question, but thinks that Texas political police will require warrants and extradition hearings before anything can be done. The Austin New Statesman quoted a letter from New Mexico Attorney General Patricia Madrid:

“Some are speculating this request from the Texas Governor’s office concerns an effort to locate missing Texas House Democrats,” Madrid wrote. “If so, Texas should understand that since ski season is over, the Santa Fe Opera has not begun and President Bush was just in town, I don’t think they are in Santa Fe now. Nevertheless, I have put out an all-points bulletin for law enforcement to be on the look out for politicians in favor of health care for the needy and against tax cuts for the wealthy.”

The most disturbing news is that an arm of the Department of Homeland Security was used to track a plane belonging to one of the representatives and provoke Monday’s standoff in Ardmore, Oklahoma. The ease with which the Republican cabal got this information from Riverside, California’s Air and Marine Interdiction and Coordination Center demonstrates how well greased the slippery slope down which we have been losing our freedoms is.

In addition to the law which allows the Speaker of the Texas State House to arrest members who won’t show to make up a quorum, Texas has a law on its books that forbids any teaching which makes Texas or its heroes look bad. For example, it cannot be mentioned in Texas textbooks that the entire Texas volunteer militia was sent home during the Mexican-American War because of repeated atrocities against civilians. Nor can the question of where the real Texas boundary was be discussed. (Those same textbooks can freely teach that FDR was a wicked socialist and his programs were unpatriotic. But then, he wasn’t a Texan.) Not only do the scoundrels micro-managing this trespass against human rights have the police officials in their pocket, but they have what the future will teach our children about this slimey affair wrapped up.

The real heroes of Texas are hanging out in Ardmore, Oklahoma, waiting out the deadline on the gerrymander bill. Back at home, their wives and children have been subjected to “Department of Public Service” deputies hanging out on their lawns and watching the postman and the garbage man perform their appointed rounds. Only one representative, Helen Giddings, was arrested — as she was leaving her Dallas apartment to meet with House Speaker Craddik, the man who ordered the roundup.

(Craddik fumes about this, but in 1971, he pulled the same stunt himself. Give me an “H”–)

Houston representative Harold Dutton, who showed up on his own, joked: “They didn’t escort me. I had to stop at all the traffic lights” driving from the airport to the Capitol.”

Republican lawmakers and officials have gone the extra mile to give “sleaze” a whole new meaning in Texas. Many in Texas and elsewhere cackle as their efforts to pass fair representation-crippling legislation come to naught. The mouths of Texas school teachers may be gagged and the voice of the national corporate media deliberately silent, but the eyes of Texas newspapers are open wide and the people of Texas are seeing a new kind of heroism acted out before their very eyes.

It’s time for the rest of us to rise and follow in their footsteps by nonviolent means.

Jeremy has links to several bloggers’ reports on the situation.