These legislators are my heroes. The short version of the story is this:

Republicans urged the Texas state legislature to redraw the Congressional districts in Texas in such a way that Democrats would loose 5 seats in Congress. Redistricting had just occurred 2 years ago, and is usually only done every 10 years when census data is release. Some of the new districts included cities several hundred miles apart connected by ribbons of land less than a mile wide. 51 Democrats from the state legislature left the state of Texas to prevent a vote from occurring (a quorum of 2/3 of the 152 members was required) in a more drastic version of a fillibuster, and they succeeded.

The new plan was being pushed by, among others, US Representative Tom DeLay (from Texas), who was quoted as saying “Fifty-six percent of Texas voters cast their vote for a Republican congressional candidate last fall, yet Texas sends more Democrats than Republicans to Congress. We’re trying to change that.” This from a political party that won a presidential election without the majority of the popular vote – they should know that just having a majority of votes across the board shouldn’t imply that you get anything.

In any event, I’m thrilled that the Texas Democrats found a solution to such a nasty problem.