'Breaking the rules' vs. 'changing the rules'

I've blogged until I'm blue in the face about the claim by the Truant Texas Dems™ that Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst and the Republicans trying to pass a redistricting bill have "changed the rules in the middle of the game." 

The Dems' new website repeats this claim yet again as the very first 12 words of their explanation as to why they're in New Mexico instead of Austin:  "On July 28, 2003, Lt. Governor David Dewhurst changed the Senate rules ...."

The Texas Senate does indeed have a formal set of written rules that were approved by both parties at the beginning of the 78th Texas Legislature, and not a one of them has been changed, abandoned, or ignored by Lt. Gov. Dewhurst or the Republican Senators.  In particular, Rule 5.12, which provides that bills shall be listed on the Senate calendar and considered in the order they're voted out of committee, and Rule 5.13, which provides that no bill "may be considered out of its regular calendar order unless the regular order is suspended by a vote of two-thirds of the members present," are both in place and fully effective.

Rather, what Lt. Gov. Dewhurst announced was that he would stop using an artificial parliamentary manipulation — the placing of a piece of bogus legislation, a "blocker bill," atop the Senate's legislative calendar — to continue to give a Senate minority the power to block all legislation.  Under the formal rules as written, unless there's such a bogus blocker bill atop the calendar, then a redistricting bill will be the first item on the calendar in any special session, and a simple majority-rule vote can pass that bill.  What the Dems have fled from is not a change in the rules, but only Lt. Gov. Dewhurst's promise to enforce the Senate rules exactly as they're written.

But there is a fairly important rule that's not being ignored or changed, but rather that's being violated:

ABSENCES

      Rule 5.03.  No member shall absent himself or herself from the sessions of the Senate without leave unless the member be sick or unable to attend.

The Truant Texas Dems™ agreed to Rule 5.03, and now they're deliberately breaking it.  They don't have "leave" they aren't sick; they aren't "unable to attend."  They're just ... rule-breakers.  Period.

In fact, as State Rep. David Swinford points out, the Texas Constitution places "on elected senators a mandatory duty to attend the Senate when called, stating in Article III, Section 5 that all Legislators 'shall meet . . . when convened by the Governor.'"  Not only did the Truant Texas Dems™ vote for Rule 5.03, they also

voluntarily bound themselves by unanimous vote to the Senate's duty of compulsory attendance by taking an oath swearing that they would "faithfully execute the duties of the office" of state senator and "preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States and of Texas."

Why have I never read of, or seen, or heard, a single reporter ask about Senate Rule 5.03 at any of the Dems' press conferences?