Texas Showdown: Renegade Democratic Lawmakers Return
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: They're back. Those renegade Texas lawmakers have arrived in Austin on a bus from Oklahoma. Ed Lavandera is live in the Texas state capital. Ed -- are they there yet? What will the reception be like if they are?</s>ED LAVANDERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, they arrived about an hour ago, a very quiet reception quite frankly. It's 4:00 in the morning, so you can't expect a lot of people to be hanging out at the state capital. But they do have plans for a big rally later on this morning. In probably the next hour or the next couple of hours there will be a rally here at the state capital, so many of the representatives that have made their way back from Oklahoma freshening up this morning. They crossed the state line from Oklahoma into Texas just a little after 11:00 last night, 11:15. And as they did that they declared victory and had a lot of cheering to do. So, those lawmakers making a quick dash down Interstate 35 into Austin and the state capitol. They will return to the House floor later on this morning. Since they left here Sunday night in the middle of the night and made that bus trip up north to Ardmore, Oklahoma, the Texas House of Representatives has essentially been shut down, very quiet on the floor. Four days of not being able to get any business done on the floor. So, the representatives and the handful of Democrats that were left behind here have been resorted just to working in committee hearing meetings throughout the week. But business picks up here again. Republican -- the speaker of the House told me yesterday that the Democrats, they have no plans for any kind of retribution, but one of the Democrats that did stay behind, Carol, that these lawmakers need to watch their backs.</s>COSTELLO: Well, you have to think that there will be hard feelings between Democrats and Republicans, especially now, no matter what they say, right, Ed?</s>LAVANDERA: Absolutely. You know, there was a big controversy. The Republicans here saying that some 500 bills have been killed because of this political stunt that the Democrats were able to pull off this week, and that that money -- that cost the state about $600 million as well. But Democrats say they'll still be able to salvage many of those bills, but the Republicans here are very skeptical of that, and it doesnt look like anyone is willing to bend over backwards to help these guys at this point.</s>COSTELLO: Two weeks left in the legislative session, so we'll see how it goes. Ed Lavandera live from Austin, Texas this morning.