AUSTIN, Texas — Texas’ most eagerly sought fugitives were tracked to their lair late Tuesday when state troopers discovered more than 50 Democratic state legislators holed up just over the border in Oklahoma, where they were staying in a Holiday Inn and holding court at Denny’s.
On Day 2 of the most thrilling political saga to grip Texas in years, Republicans at the domed state Capitol on Tuesday plastered the missing Democrats’ faces on milk cartons and distributed decks of playing cards picturing the Democrats in the style of most-wanted Iraqis.
Meanwhile, the defiant Democrats stayed on the lam.
Lacking the ability to make arrests in Oklahoma, the Texas troopers urged the lawmakers to come home to the Lone Star State, where they are needed to do the people’s business in the state House of Representatives.
But the Democrats refused, maintaining a boycott that has paralyzed all legislative business, undercut efforts to write a multibillion budget and imperiled hundreds of pending bills.
The Democrats said they would not come home until the House drops a congressional redistricting plan designed to add five to seven more Republican seats to the 15 the GOP already control in Texas. The redistricting proposal has been aggressively pushed by Republicans, who in January took control of the Texas House of Representatives for the first time in 130 years.
The walkout by the Democrats, who hold 62 of the 150 House seats, has deprived the chamber of the 100-member minimum it needs to debate and vote on pending legislation. On Tuesday, only 95 members could be mustered.
That infuriated Republicans, who control all 29 statewide elected offices but now find themselves blocked in the state House of Representatives. They accused the Democratic minority of childish and cowardly behavior, and insisted they would not be moved by the walkout.
The GOP is “not interested in negotiating” an end to the standoff, said Republican House Speaker Tom Craddick, whom Democrats blame for trying to ram the redistricting plan through and polarizing the legislature. He insisted the Democrats return to the Capitol forthwith.
The Democrats timed their boycott to maximum effect. Major House bills that aren’t approved by midnight Thursday are likely dead for this year.
The 53 missing Democrats were ensconced just over the state line in the little town of Ardmore, off Interstate 35 north of Dallas. Contacted by journalists, they described their stealthy exit late Sunday, when they boarded chartered buses after dark for the five-hour ride from Austin to Ardmore. Rumors about their whereabouts swirled throughout the Capitol on Monday — that they were in New Mexico, or Oklahoma, or possibly even in Mexico — until state troopers tracked them to Ardmore.
“We’re fine with Texas lawmakers coming into Ardmore and spending their tax dollars there,” said Oklahoma Gov. Brad Henry, a Democrat, through a spokesman. “We’d be very hesitant to be pulled into a Texas political battle. We prefer to do battle with Texas on the football field.”
