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House Democrats may try to mimic in their own way Texas Democratic state lawmakers who brought their state House to a standstill this week by fleeing to Oklahoma.
House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) said the stealth and precision with which 53 Texas Democrats fled to a Holiday Inn in Ardmore, Okla., - denying Republicans in the Texas Legislature the quorum they needed to bring up a Congressional redistricting plan pushed by U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay
(R-Texas) - could be "a galvanizing event" for Democrats on Capitol Hill.
"If the Republicans continue to muzzle the minority with rules," said Hoyer, "we may have no alternative but to take dramatic action."
But House Democrats cannot stop action in their chamber by simply walking out as the Texas lawmakers did, though they have staged symbolic walkouts in the past.
A quorum in the House can be achieved with just a simple majority, or 218 Members, and Republicans control 229 seats. There are no requirements that a Member of the minority be present in order for the House to conduct its business.
Still, when Hoyer addressed the House Democratic Caucus on Wednesday morning he called the Texas state lawmakers "courageous." And he told his colleagues that House Democrats, led by Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (Calif.),...