Texas Is Still In The Race (Unfortunately)

It seems that the yearly contest for craziest state legislature is becoming more popular with each passing election, and it is especially intense this year. Several states have made breathtaking challenges for the crown, including Wisconsin, Oklahoma, Mississippi, Florida, South Dakota, and of course, returning champion Arizona. But Texas has been bringing the crazy for over 150 years now, and they're not about to throw in the towel.

Texas has already brought forth bills to stop non-existent voter fraud, deny citizenship to Hispanic babies, eliminate "sanctuary" cities, force women to view sonograms before an abortion, and lay off nearly 100,000 teachers. But it's early in the legislative session and Republicans have not run out of crazy yet. Now the Republican women are joining the fray.

State Rep. Lois Kolkhorst (R-Brenham) has filed yet another Republican immigration bill -- in spite of the fact that immigration is a federal, not a state concern. She has decided that all undocumented immigrants are the fault of the U.S. Congress, so her bill would authorize any local law enforcement officers to drop off undocumented immigrants at the office of any U.S. Senator or Representative. An employee of the senator or representative would be required to sign a statement acknowledging receipt of the immigrant.

I think Kolkhorst's bill deserves a companion bill -- that would take effect the same time her bill does, if passed. The companion bill would require Republican legislators to house and feed all unemployed persons out of their personal funds. After all, it is the policies of their party that caused most of those people to lose their jobs.

State Rep. Debbie Riddle (R-Tomball), whose prior claim to fame is the charge that terrorists are having "anchor babies" that will return to commit terrorist acts in 20-30 years, is introducing her own immigration bill. Her bill would make it a state felony for someone to hire an undocumented immigrant. Her bill does have an exception though -- it would not be a felony crime to hire an undocumented immigrant to work "exclusively or primarily at a single-family residence". She had to include that exception or she would have made felons of her rich Republican friends.

Republicans may talk of budget-cutting and jobs (neither of which they're very good at), but they can't fool us. They're really going for the unofficial title of craziest state legislature -- and right now, the race is very close.