In 2003, Texas Democrats fled the state rather than allow the majority Republicans to vote on a redistricting plan that may have cost them 5 seats in the 150-seat state legislature (I'm wondering if they ever protested their own redistricting plans). Earlier this month, Wisconsin Democrats fled the state to avoid a vote that would make some public union members pay more for their defined benefits program (but less than the public sector pays for benefits plans that are uncertain). Now, Indiana Democrats are leaving that state (ironically headed for Illinois, the same place the Wisconsin Democrats went) to avoid a vote on what is commonly known as "right to work legislation". Right to work statutes provide that union membership and payment of union dues cannot be a condition of employment. In other words, you don't have to be in a union to get a job. What a shocking concept, that labor should be free to move between jobs in order to create competition in the labor market and to procure what fits them best as an individual.
The bad news? Democrats are refusing to represent the people they were elected to represent. A filibuster is representation, fleeing a state, I submit, is not. Representative democracy doesn't work if the representatives blow off their duties (and, I might add, continue to collect their salaries while vacationing in Illinois).
The good news? We now know how to get Democrats to leave the state, we just have to figure how to keep them gone.
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