The Texas Republicans are at it again...

You gotta be kiddin' me...

Heflin's attorney, Andy Taylor, said the election results in state House District 149 in southwest Harris County were fraught with voting irregularities and potential fraud, most of which occurred in predominantly Democratic precincts.

"The true outcome of this election was stolen from the voters in House District 149," Taylor said Tuesday. "We will prove that Representative Talmadge Heflin was re-elected."

Heflin, a Republican member of the House since 1983 and chairman of its Appropriations Committee, lost to Democratic businessman Hubert Vo by 32 votes earlier this month. But Heflin's campaign alleges that those election results include at least 248 irregularities that could have altered the outcome.

Taylor said he will file notice today that the Heflin campaign intends to contest the election in the Republican-controlled House of Representatives. That will require that House Speaker Tom Craddick order a House committee to investigate Heflin's allegations.

After the committee reports its findings, the full House will decide whether to seat Vo or Heflin or call for a new election. The House's decision will be binding, said a
spokesman for the Texas secretary of state's office.

Of course, the Texas legislature is controlled by the Republicans, and its Speaker, Tom Craddick, can appoint a committee, invested with subpoena power, to investigate the matter, and he has already stated that Vo will never be seated in "his" House. Even with that aside, look back to how the Republicans rammed through a second re-districting a couple years ago which gerrymandered 4 Democrats out of their seats in the House.

Look, there might be a couple irregularities here and there (there always are in every election). But do you really think that the Republican legislature is going to give this matter a fair shake? And do you really think that Heflin's people categorizes irregularities in Republican precincts (or even looked there)?

Unfortunately, they are already out ahead of the media on this one with their claims that the election was stolen and that the irregularities were all in left-leaning precincts. This is going to be a fun one to watch...