Herman Melville’s short story “Bartleby, the Scrivener” is the tale of a clerk in a lawyer’s office who suddenly decides to stop working. He continues to show up at the office every morning on time and put in a full day, but he doesn’t do any work. Whenever the boss asks him to take on a particular assignment, Bartleby responds, “I would prefer not to.”
How many employers would tolerate such behavior? Believe it or not, in Texas, there are millions of bosses who, apparently, are willing to put up with similar insolence and insubordination. They’re the constituents of the 50-plus Democrat legislators who deprived the House of a quorum and fled the state to prevent passage of a bill that would make elections more secure from fraud. Despite their brazen dereliction of duty, they’ve yet to be held accountable.
There is widespread agreement that these goldbrickers and scofflaws should be compelled to do their jobs, punished for their failure to do so, and/or removed from office, but no one seems to know exactly how to accomplish this.
Rep. James White (HD-19) formally asked Texas State Attorney General Ken Paxton if a legislator who intentionally breaks quorum is effectively vacating his office.
Right or wrong, Paxton punted, saying that making such a determination was not the responsibility of his office, but something for a district court to decide.
“Texas courts recognize that a vacancy may occur by abandonment of office,” Paxton wrote in response to White’s inquiry. “Whether a specific legislator abandoned his or her office such that a vacancy occurred will be a fact question for a court and is beyond the scope of an Attorney General opinion.”
Paxton explained that “a district court may determine that a legislator has forfeited his or her office due to abandonment and can remove the legislator from office, thereby creating a vacancy.”
If that’s the solution, let the courts provide it. If the judges who work for us also shirk their duty, the citizens of Texas must fire the impertinent idlers in the next election.