THE RACE IS ON, AND IT LOOKS LIKE LAWBREAK...

May 12, 2003 -- 10:00 p.m.

For those of you non-Texans, here is a little taste of how our government works here in the Lone Star State. The following is a TRUE STORY (OK, maybe with an embellishment or two...).

"This just in.... the Democrats have been found."

This was a quote from our local news just minutes ago. I'm not kidding.

If you haven't heard, our Texas House Of Representatives is at a standstill at this hour, after 53 of the Democratic legislators went ON THE LAM -- they've been "missing" for hours and hours, in protest to Republican-supported rezoning laws about to be passed in the Texas Legislature. Now, here's the funny part: By law, the doors to the courtroom must be immediately locked (literally imprisoning all legislators present at the time), and the State Highway Patrol to go out and HUNT DOWN the fleeing legislators, and bring them back to the capitol building in Austin to finish the session.

Once again, I'm not making this up. Roger Corman couldn't make this stuff up. I just picture the stuffy old codgery judge in the stuffy old courtroom, banging his gavel and saying "Now that's it! Go git 'em boys!" and Roscoe P. Coletrain drops his corn dog down his shirtfront, and Barney Fife is wrist-deep in his pocket digging for his bullet, and all the Buford T. Justices and Keystone Cops all bottleneck out of the courtroom, everybody a-YEE-HAW-in' and a-YIPPE-KI-YAY-in', shootin' their .45's into the ground and raising up in the air like Yosemite Sam. Next the Benny Hill music starts, and everybody zooms around the Capitol building in fast-motion, a blur of cops, lawyers, judges and leggy girls in bikinis, of course ending with Gonzalo Barientos getting a pie in the face. No, that's really what happened. I'm serious.

NOW.... here's the real funny part: They broke in on the news around 10:00, giving the aforementioned title-blurb, "This just in. The Democrats have been found . We repeat, the Democrats have been found, trying to cross the Oklahoma border." WHAT?? Who did they get advice from... Scott Peterson? "They were found in a rental car with $100,000 in cash, with all their brothers' ID's. They had all dyed their hair blonde and grown goatees. One was wearing a Groucho Marx nose-and-specs disguise. And a Bozo wig."

We immediately visualized the "Great State Rep Round-Up of Aught-Three" -- finding them hiding out in their parents' basement (picture a giant woman in a muu-muu and curlers, chasing the cops with a rolling pin and a pit bull: "He's a good boy, officer! He don't mean nobody no harm!!"), running through the woods, found out by infra-red helicopter scanners and spotlights, hiding in Port-A-Johns and sniffed out by the hounds. A wobbly camera shot of officers walking up on the homeless Shantytown behind the Chevron next to my apartment, a bunch of scraggly dudes sitting around on beer boxes, eating Beenie-Weenies and drinking Mad Dog Grape. Camera pans around the group, and we see several guys in tattered suits, shirts buttoned crooked, ties dangling loose from around their necks, sporting a three day growth of beard (even though they've only been gone a few hours). They look up, bleary-eyed, trying to down one last spoonful of Beenie Weenies with the flip-lids of their tiny cell phones before they are dragged to their feet and hauled away, kicking weakly and muttering stuff about "Can't we just get on down the road?" and "I ain't goin' back, man..." Then there's the sting operation: The street-savvy State Rep goes to the favorite booby-bar, expecting to blend in with all the other State Reps there. Imagine his astonishment when he realizes that they are all in "lock-down" back at the Capitol building because of the big break-out! The cops finally drag him away kicking and screaming, with tented trousers and a fistful of singles. Then there's the grand finale: The motorcycle chase! Broadcast live from local news helicopters, with about 10 State Reps on stolen choppers, shades on, cigs dangling, neckties tied around their heads and flapping behind them. Easy Rider meets Thelma & Louise meets OJ, leading an endless line of cop cars on a low-speed chase over hundreds of miles of I-10, Smoky and the Bandit music blaring (either Jerry Reed or banjo music), ending in a foot chase through the neighborhoods of Wichita Falls, taken down in a final stand-off by a gang of Neighborhood Watch and NRA members. Now them's ratings, people.

And get this -- it isn't even an original idea! A group of 12 liberal Democrats, called the "Killer Bees", did the same thing in 1979. Not sure how that ended up, I'll have to do a bit more research on my TX history. I do know that the deal this time is that if the Democrats can hold out, lam it, till Thursday, then the bills that they are protesting will die, and have to be re-proposed later. Obviously, this is the most ridiculous, take-my-ball-and-go-home, melodramatic grandstanding nonsense that I have ever seen in TX politics (at least State politics). Can't wait to see how it turns out!

To be continued.....