Naked City

While U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Sugar Land, privately worked the Capitol attempting to resolve a deadlock between Texas House and Senate Republicans over congressional re-redistricting, a group of House Democratic "troublemakers" -- according to Bob Richter, a spokesman for House Speaker Tom Craddick -- told a Tuesday press conference that Craddick had "grossly" violated House rules by refusing to recognize their objections on the floor to a motion to adjourn. According to state Rep. Joe Deshotel, D-Beaumont, on Sunday the Democrats -- who outnumbered Republicans in attendance 12-2 -- had notified the parliamentarian of their intent to object to GOP Rep. Phil King's motion to adjourn the House until Wednesday, and were told to do so verbally from the floor. But Craddick ignored their objections and brought down the gavel to evade a potential Democratic attempt to adjourn sine die and end the special session altogether. "It's not certain from the rules that we could have adjourned sine die," said Deshotel, "but it's certain that the speaker must recognize any objection to a motion, and he refused to do so because he knew he would lose [a vote]."

The House proceedings were not officially videotaped, as is customary -- Craddick later attributed that to a miscommunication with House staff -- but the Democratic representatives provided a televised news report that showed Craddick clearly adjourning the House over the objections of its members. Deshotel called Craddick's action an "extremely serious" violation of House rules and said it may place in legal jeopardy not only any pending redistricting plan, but any legislation still under consideration during the third special session.

Houston Rep. Garnet Coleman denounced Richter's description of "duly elected representatives" as "troublemakers," adding, "The press should cover redistricting like a crime, instead of a sporting event -- because the participants are not 'players,' they are perpetrators of a historic and blatant abuse of power that has never been seen before in the halls of this Capitol." Austin Rep. Elliott Naishtat said that initially, the Democrats intended only to postpone Monday's scheduled House session beyond the conclusion of Yom Kippur -- but when they realized they might have an opportunity to adjourn sine die, they wanted to make the attempt. "The victims of this abuse of power are the people of Texas," said Naishtat, "who have seen their leaders spend $57,000 a day, wasting millions of tax dollars on a partisan power grab while basic needs like health care and education go unmet."

Despite ongoing negotiations and regular announcements of "progress," as of Tuesday Senate and House conferees had failed to agree on a map; the current proposals under discussion no longer correspond to any map considered in prior public hearings or voted on by either the House or the Senate. House Dems cited Craddick's violation of the House rules, the likelihood that the March primary election will need to be postponed, and the "bait-and-switch" of the redistricting maps as three examples of the GOP's attempt to "cancel the votes and the voting rights of Texans at the expense of the state's real priorities."