This scenario is perfectly set for an old-fashioned Hollywood Western chase scene, with the bad guys (Texas legislator flee-baggers) riding their horses to exhaustion, relentlessly pursued by the posse of FBI agents.
Texas Senator John Cornyn made a legal request to the Federal Bureau of Investigation to ride out after the fleeing Texas legislators and bring them to justice — sort of. It’s against Texas state law for the legislators to leave the state to avoid a legislative quorum, but it’s not against federal law. So, the FBI has promised to “locate” the fleeing flee-baggers for Senator Cornyn, instead of taking them in.
That’s very thoughtful of them, but it doesn’t solve the problem. Texas is going to have to get a federal judge to sign off on an arrest warrant, something that is highly unlikely. It’s as clear as day that this is a state matter and not a federal one, so unless some shady shenanigans transpire and a federal judge is bought off or blackmailed, the missing state legislators will remain in the wind.
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This is also a tailor-made scenario for political grandstanding.
Illinois Democratic Gov. JB Pritzker, already running hard for the 2028 Democratic nomination for president in 2028, said Sunday that his state would protect Texas Democrats who fled to it.
“Protect” them from what? From who? Talk about “grandstanding…”
“They’re here in Illinois. We’re going to do everything we can to protect every single one of them and make sure that — because we know they’re doing the right thing, we know that they’re following the law,” Pritzker told reporters at a press conference Sunday night held alongside the Texas state lawmakers.
Well, that’s simply wrong. They were not “doing the right thing” as far as the letter of the law is concerned. Pritzker is saying quite clearly that the “ends justify the means” — just like every dictator, fuhrer, commissar, and authoritarian strongman has said in the last 150 years.
“It’s Ken Paxton who doesn’t follow the law. It’s the leaders of Texas who are attempting not to follow the law,” he continued, calling out Texas’s Republican attorney general by name. “They’re the ones that need to be held accountable.”
I guess Pritzker is going to make an excellent Democratic president. Saying that Texas Republicans are not following the law is a lie. Holding someone “accountable” for speaking the truth is exactly what Stalin and Hitler were fond of doing.
Pritzker intimated that he would use Illinois state law enforcement to “protect” the Democrats.
“They can say that they’re sending the FBI. FBI agents might show up to, I don’t know, put a show on,” Pritzker said on the podcast “News Not Noise with Jessica Yellin.”
“But the fact is, our local law enforcement protects everybody in the state in Illinois. Our state troopers protect anybody in Illinois, and anybody who’s here in Illinois. And so, whether it’s federal agents coming to Illinois or state rangers from Texas, if you haven’t broken federal law, you’re basically unwelcome, and there’s no way that our state legislators here, Texas state legislators, can be arrested.”
What’s he going to do if 50 Texas Rangers show up to arrest some Democrats? Is Illinois law enforcement going to invite a confrontation?
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott might like that a lot. Abbott has also been mentioned as a possible 2028 candidate, and a standoff between state and federal law enforcement would be just the thing to supercharge his visibility. He already gets high marks for his stand on illegal immigration. Imagine sticking it to the Democrats by forcing a showdown with Democratic state legislators in Illinois?
“But I’ll tell you this also, Democrats act like they’re not going to come back as long as this is an issue,” Abbott said. “That means they’re not going to come back until like 2027 or 2028, because I’m going to call special session after special session after special session with the same agenda items on there.”
Yeah, he’s running.
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