Man...I had a GREAT idea for a story on Texas Lawmakers giving advice to lawmakers in Wisconsin and Indiana who are dealing with legislative walkouts. BUT - Sam Stein over at the Huffington Post beat me to it (by a week...darn it!). You may remember in 2003 Democrats in the Texas House fled to Oklahoma while Senate Dems took off for New Mexico to block passage of a new congressional redistricting bill. So Sam called some of the people who left the state then to see if they had advice for those in a similar situation now. The first quote he has from Senator Leticia Van de Putte (D-San Antonio) alone makes it a great story.
Texas Advice To Lawmakers On The Lam in IN, WI
![Van de Putte and other senators stayed in New Mexico for more than a month](https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/67fddfe/2147483647/strip/true/crop/150x200+0+0/resize/880x1173!/quality/90/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2Flegacy%2Fsites%2Fkut%2Ffiles%2F201102%2FVandePutte.jpg)
picture courtesy Sen. Van de Putte