12 May 2003

What I'm worrying about is significantly worse than harboring mutinous representatives from our neighbor state. It's being constitutionally responsible for handing them over. One of my job duties (probably the most important one) is preparing Governor's warrants for interstate fugitives. I can just imagine the Texas state police locating some representative in New Mexico and Rick Perry sending over a warrant for him. I'd be in the fun position of having to prepare a warrant on behalf of our Governor, who could either deny the warrant (which Constitutionally puts us in a bad spot and harms our relationship with the Texas Governor) or issue it (in effect betraying those brave legislators who decided to turn their tails and flee the session).

Of course, this whole scenario is far-fetched; my understanding is that those legislators haven't committed any crime -- the state police are simply being used as glorified pages rounding up the errant legislators. I'm also not exactly sure how the whole Democratic caucus got convinced to do this. They're dead when they get back. Incidentally, my understanding is it's very legally tenuous to do congressional redistricting in a non-decennial year -- it looks a lot like gerrymandering to the courts. The Democrats in New Mexico tried to do it this year but eventually pulled back. So, the Texas Dems might have been able to block the redistricting through the courts. I'll certainly be interested in what happens.

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