Why shouldn’t Democrats leave? The Texas House wasn’t doing anything important.

The Texas Legislature has been brought to a standstill, although I’m not clear how anyone can tell.

Texas Democrats left town Monday, but good government had left long before that.

Gov. Greg Abbott’s 11-item want list for the 30-day legislative special session wandered too deeply into political campaigning, particularly with a restrictive election reform bill. So Democrats saw no point in staying around just to be a punching-bag.

Now, understand that this isn’t a simple red-blue issue.

Abbott doesn’t need to make Democrats happy to keep the Legislature at work. He only has to make 17 of them happy.

That’s how many Democrats are needed for the House to meet. The other 50 can leave and it won’t matter.

But Abbott and Republicans were unable to lay out a to-do list for the special session that held enough crossover appeal to keep even two-thirds of the House on hand, including 17 Democrats.

Instead, the list of 11 bills Abbott wants passed in 30 days — a brisk pace for any Legislature — includes everything from transgender restrictions to regulating how schools teach about slavery and racism.

Like in the regular session, most of the debate seems focused on an election bill that still basically rewrites state law to punish Harris County for heavy, round-the-clock voting in the 2020 election.

Texas doesn’t have big election problems. But just to make sure, the election bills tighten down on voting by mail.

That at least seems reasonable. But in various previous incarnations, the bills would have moved many central-city polling places and machines in counties like Tarrant to outlying suburbs instead. It also would have allowed judges to throw out election results without proving any votes were actually cast illegally.

Then, Republicans wasted any remaining goodwill at the end of the Legislature’s regular session, when they unveiled a last-second list of bombshell amendments to be considered without debate.

For those departing Democrats, there is considerable heartburn in leaving town. House staffers need to earn a paycheck, and Abbott vetoed their pay beginning Sept. 1 to leverage Democrats back for the special session. Democrats may find themselves raising campaign donations to compensate their unpaid staff.

Look, leaving town is never the best solution. And it doesn’t seem to be the smartest.

The governor remains in full control. He can continue to call special sessions every 30 days indefinitely. If at least 17 Democrats don’t show up at the Capitol, he can keep the travelers trapped in D.C. throughout the 2022 election.

It doesn’t make any sense. But this is what happens when the punching bag gets tired and books a plane ticket.