Hey, Abbott...!

So, the other day, Gov. Greg Abbott (R-TX) threatened to withhold the pay of state legislators until they pass the voter suppression bill that Democrats temporarily blocked by walking out the state house before the deadline for it to pass.  There are a few odd things about this threat, though, that make even less sense than the voter suppression bill.  At least with that, we can understand what Republicans are trying to do.

First, legislators make $600 a month.  If you only count weekdays, that works out to a whopping $30 a day that would be withheld.  That's like one reasonably nice dinner a day.  "So, Democrats, you have a choice -- continue fighting to keep fascism from overthrowing the government...or risk losing 30 bucks every...single...day!!"  Leave it to Republican Land to think that money would come before democracy. Let alone the price of a cheap haircut.

Second, does Mr. Abbott not realize that if pay was actually withheld from Texas legislators, this would include Republicans??  Further, there are more Republicans in the legislature than Democrats.  So, this would affect his own party -- who, being Republicans, might actually care about the 30 bucks -- more than the other side. What I don't know is if this lame-brain thinking came from Abbott, or Costello?

And third -- how on earth is this "I, as governor, am withholding the pay for a co-equal branch of government" supposed to work?!!  I know that Texas is a goofy state and does a lot of goofy things and seems to have a goofy constitution, but I can't even begin to believe that their state constitution is that insane.  If it was, I'm sure that in the long history of corrupt Texas governors, at least one of them would have used this gambit by now, withholding pay of the state legislature to get what he or she wanted.  And I'm equally sure that if just one governor in Texas ever did this...the very next day the Texas legislature would have reversed the law and probably cut the pay for the governor to $8.

I suspect that there will be some way that the Texas legislature will pass their voter suppression bill.  Whether that's through a special session that has been rumored or some other uprooting of democracy.  But however it's done, it will not be done because of the empty, bobble-headed, idiotic threat of its governor.

And it should not come as a shock that the day after making that treat, Abbott was endorsed for a third term by Trump.

Who's on first?  I don't know.