By: W.C. Reader

This column was created originally to deal with matters of a folklore nature and at the same time, toss in a little humor to encourage you to laugh with me – or at me. But every so often something occurs which “raises our dander” and cause us to stray into areas, which rightfully belong, on the editorial page.

Now all this goes back to the current sessions of the Texas Legislature, where a number of our lawmakers apparently have ceased to act like our representatives and started to conduct themselves more like clowns.

By now you must suspect we are pointing at those people who in recent weeks have abandoned their seats in the Legislature Chambers in the State Capitol in Austin and fled across the borders to the neighboring states of Oklahoma and New Mexico. From those advantage – or disadvantage – points, they prevented the gathering of a quorum of members required to deal with the business of law making of the state. In this particular instance, the business was an effort to redistrict the state into a number of areas of citizens, each group whose qualified voters would elect a person to represent their interests in the Congress of the United States. This did not go well with Legislators from one political party, so with the apparent financial aid of a few influential citizens, they deserted their posts in Austin and took off for other points in order to negate the possibility of their loss of seats which their party presently holds in Washington. Naturally they would deny such charges, but why else would they make themselves unavailable to perform the duties, which go with their office.

When voters select a man or woman to serve them in any public office, they expect those people to make themselves available to perform the duties, which go with that office. They are not expected to resort to political shenanigans and to circumvent the will of the people and the laws of the land.

Now how do you deal with political conniving which we have had to bear witness to in recent weeks? Well, the first though is to “take them to court”! Better think again though. People who have proven adept to planting legislative rules probably are just as capable of thumbing their noses at the judiciary.

We have what we think is a better suggestion. First make certain that you know whom your State Representative and your State Senator are. Then find out where they were spending their time during the past several weeks when the Texas State Legislature was in regular or in special session. Were they in Austin, Texas attending to the duties of the office which you citizens entrusted to them? Or were they among that group of Legislatures who deserted their posts and fled across the borders into Oklahoma and New Mexico, thus bringing law-making activities to a halt? If one or both of your Legislators were among these who participated in the most recent “Runaway Scope” in Texas history, we suggest you go to the polls at the next election in which they may be candidates for the Legislature, and send them home permanently.

You can’t win a battle, which has to depend on troops who are AWOL.

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