Reply #7: Abraham Lincoln jumped out of the building in a bid to prevent foes from getting a quorum

[Omaha Steve]

K&R!

http://www.cnn.com/2011/POLITICS/02/18/awol.legislators ...

By Phil Gast, CNN
February 18, 2011 11:12 p.m. EST


While in the Illinois House, Abraham Lincoln jumped out of the building in a futile bid to prevent foes from getting a quorum.


(CNN) -- This week's bitter budget showdown in Wisconsin isn't the first time state legislators have fled a state, left a building or refused to show when votes were called.

The "Killer Ds" and the "Texas 11," for example, skedaddled from Texas in 2003 to prevent consideration of a redistricting bill.

In 1839, a young Abraham Lincoln, serving as a Whig in the Illinois House, jumped out of the building in a futile bid to prevent Democrats from getting a quorum to vote on a banks bill.

Members of the 1891 Florida Senate went to Georgia in a bid to prevent a quorum for the election of a U.S. senator.

And in 1994, Republican members of the California Assembly refused to show up for floor sessions in an effort to prevent Democrats from electing Willie Brown as speaker with less than a majority vote.

FULL story at link.