By Dick Polman
Published September 9th 2003 in Knight Ridder
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. - (KRT) - Ten Democratic state senators from Texas have been living on the lam for six weeks, boycotting what they call "a partisan power grab" by their Republican colleagues to redraw the Texas congressional districts. But now they are going home.
Wednesday, they will bid goodbye to their chain hotel, to the numbing hum of freeway traffic behind their windows, to the phone calls from love-starved offspring, to the 50-cent dryer and the battered TV in the laundry room, to the mall excursions for fresh clothes, to the morning treadmill and the evening poker game, to the realization that they were like the characters in "Groundhog Day," replicating their daily rut.
In short, they are halting their war of attrition, which began July 28 when they fled to New Mexico to foil a bold move - crafted in Washington by House Majority Leader Tom DeLay and White House aides - to create five or six new GOP congressional seats in Texas and thereby ensure Republican dominance of Congress for years.
The Texas Ten are folding because they are no longer the Texas Eleven. John "Boogie" Whitmire defected last week, which means the GOP state senators now have enough votes to redraw the lines. A special session is scheduled for Monday - much to the dismay of Democrat Gonzalo Barrientos, who for weeks has been hanging out in his hotel room, watching baseball, and marking key passages in "The Federalist Papers."
"People think we're full of bull when we talk about things like tyranny and the need for checks and balances," Barrientos said, "but that's what this fight is about, man. In Texas we like to say, `Go along, git along.' But sometimes you've got to stand up and tell the truth. This is tyranny."
The Texas Ten have now hooked up with the liberal activists at MoveOn.org, and Democratic presidential candidates, to hawk a controversial message: that the Texas imbroglio is fresh evidence of the GOP's desire to manipulate and overturn elections, from the Clinton impeachment and the halted Florida recount to the California gubernatorial recall and a similar redistricting move in Colorado.
But, as in any political tempest, there are two sides.
Republicans say the Texas congressional delegation (17 Democrats, 15 Republicans) does not reflect state sentiment; in 2002, 56 percent of Texans voted for GOP congressional candidates. Therefore, Republicans argue, the GOP-run legislature is entitled to redraw districts and produce more Republican members of Congress. State party chair Susan Weddington says they're honoring "the will of the Texas voters."
In polls, Texans are evenly split about the Republican move; after all, it's a breach of tradition to reopen the once-a-decade redistricting process after the courts have already spoken. (They're trying to overturn a map that was drawn two years ago by three federal judges.) However, most Texans don't support the Democratic exiles, telling pollsters it was chicken to run away just because they didn't have the votes to thwart Tom DeLay.
But the Texas Ten don't see what's chicken about living on the lam for a cause, killing time in a Marriott surrounded by chain stores and vast expanses of asphalt, and posing vital questions such as:
"Who's got the Tide detergent?"
"Can I borrow your bottle of Woolite?"
"Where's the van, so I can buy some socks?"
"Want to go out to the casino?" (Answer: "We can't do that, we don't want it to look like we're having any fun.")
They don't have money to gamble with, anyway. These are part-time lawmakers who left their jobs behind. For instance, Leticia Van De Putte is a pharmacist who doesn't get paid when she can't work. She had to take out a loan on her life insurance policy to pay the tuitions of her three college kids.
She also has three children at home. One son phoned her recently at the Marriott, at 12:30 a.m. He said, "Mom, my stomach really hurts." She made suggestions, which included waking up dad. The son called back at 1 a.m., and said, "Mom, it really, really hurts." By 5 a.m., after tracking his symptoms, she knew what he needed: an emergency appendectomy.
She wanted to come home. But she remembered what happened last spring, when state House Democrats staged a similar exodus, fleeing to Oklahoma, and the Republicans sent Texas Rangers to track them down. So Van De Putte's husband warned her to stay put, saying, "You can't risk coming back. They will get you."
Even when Democrats first learned that national GOP leaders - Bush strategist Karl Rove, ex-Bush aide Karen Hughes and DeLay - were huddling with their Texas friends last winter and spring, they never imagined they would exile themselves for so long. (They comfort themselves knowing that state legislator Abraham Lincoln once jumped out of a window to avoid a vote. But he didn't flee Illinois.)
Judy Zaffirini recalled that when she packed, "I just threw in one pair of socks." Gonzalo Barrientos has donned one pair of pants so often that his wallet tore a hole in the left pocket. Mario Gallegos has been washing the same few clothes at a city Laundromat, with the help of his Santana CDs.
And after so much sacrifice, they don't cotton much to the idea that their crusade may be imperfect. The Republicans are targeting Texas because the federal judges (two Republicans, one Democrat) barely changed the congressional boundaries that had been drawn back in 1991 - by a Democratic state legislature. And now the nonpartisan Center for Voting and Democracy sees that map as a Democratic power grab.
They respond by contending that the GOP would pack minority Texans into very few districts, in a way that would augment the clout of suburban Republican voters and doom the half-dozen white moderate Democrats who always win with help from blacks and Hispanics. Indeed, GOP lobbyist Grover Norquist has indicated that one goal is "to help remove centrist Democrats from Congress."
The Democrats' grander conspiracy theory has its flaws. There is no evidence that the White House played any role in launching the California recall against Democratic Gov. Gray Davis, and some exiles concede this. But their focus now is on going home and fighting the redistricting plan in court - mindful that politics these days is war without end. And at least they can reacquaint themselves with life's creature comforts.
As Barrientos remarked, over a cheap lunch at the Steak and Ale, "I've got a '54 Chevy convertible. Mellow yellow outside, green interior. I'm having it renovated, and it's almost done. Two nights ago, I dreamed about that damn car. Can't wait to drive it. Put the top down, cruise down the street. Yell out, `Hey, dudes, what's goin' on?' That would be cool."
Wednesday, they will bid goodbye to their chain hotel, to the numbing hum of freeway traffic behind their windows, to the phone calls from love-starved offspring, to the 50-cent dryer and the battered TV in the laundry room, to the mall excursions for fresh clothes, to the morning treadmill and the evening poker game, to the realization that they were like the characters in "Groundhog Day," replicating their daily rut.
In short, they are halting their war of attrition, which began July 28 when they fled to New Mexico to foil a bold move - crafted in Washington by House Majority Leader Tom DeLay and White House aides - to create five or six new GOP congressional seats in Texas and thereby ensure Republican dominance of Congress for years.
The Texas Ten are folding because they are no longer the Texas Eleven. John "Boogie" Whitmire defected last week, which means the GOP state senators now have enough votes to redraw the lines. A special session is scheduled for Monday - much to the dismay of Democrat Gonzalo Barrientos, who for weeks has been hanging out in his hotel room, watching baseball, and marking key passages in "The Federalist Papers."
"People think we're full of bull when we talk about things like tyranny and the need for checks and balances," Barrientos said, "but that's what this fight is about, man. In Texas we like to say, `Go along, git along.' But sometimes you've got to stand up and tell the truth. This is tyranny."
The Texas Ten have now hooked up with the liberal activists at MoveOn.org, and Democratic presidential candidates, to hawk a controversial message: that the Texas imbroglio is fresh evidence of the GOP's desire to manipulate and overturn elections, from the Clinton impeachment and the halted Florida recount to the California gubernatorial recall and a similar redistricting move in Colorado.
But, as in any political tempest, there are two sides.
Republicans say the Texas congressional delegation (17 Democrats, 15 Republicans) does not reflect state sentiment; in 2002, 56 percent of Texans voted for GOP congressional candidates. Therefore, Republicans argue, the GOP-run legislature is entitled to redraw districts and produce more Republican members of Congress. State party chair Susan Weddington says they're honoring "the will of the Texas voters."
In polls, Texans are evenly split about the Republican move; after all, it's a breach of tradition to reopen the once-a-decade redistricting process after the courts have already spoken. (They're trying to overturn a map that was drawn two years ago by three federal judges.) However, most Texans don't support the Democratic exiles, telling pollsters it was chicken to run away just because they didn't have the votes to thwart Tom DeLay.
But the Texas Ten don't see what's chicken about living on the lam for a cause, killing time in a Marriott surrounded by chain stores and vast expanses of asphalt, and posing vital questions such as:
"Who's got the Tide detergent?"
"Can I borrow your bottle of Woolite?"
"Where's the van, so I can buy some socks?"
"Want to go out to the casino?" (Answer: "We can't do that, we don't want it to look like we're having any fun.")
They don't have money to gamble with, anyway. These are part-time lawmakers who left their jobs behind. For instance, Leticia Van De Putte is a pharmacist who doesn't get paid when she can't work. She had to take out a loan on her life insurance policy to pay the tuitions of her three college kids.
She also has three children at home. One son phoned her recently at the Marriott, at 12:30 a.m. He said, "Mom, my stomach really hurts." She made suggestions, which included waking up dad. The son called back at 1 a.m., and said, "Mom, it really, really hurts." By 5 a.m., after tracking his symptoms, she knew what he needed: an emergency appendectomy.
She wanted to come home. But she remembered what happened last spring, when state House Democrats staged a similar exodus, fleeing to Oklahoma, and the Republicans sent Texas Rangers to track them down. So Van De Putte's husband warned her to stay put, saying, "You can't risk coming back. They will get you."
Even when Democrats first learned that national GOP leaders - Bush strategist Karl Rove, ex-Bush aide Karen Hughes and DeLay - were huddling with their Texas friends last winter and spring, they never imagined they would exile themselves for so long. (They comfort themselves knowing that state legislator Abraham Lincoln once jumped out of a window to avoid a vote. But he didn't flee Illinois.)
Judy Zaffirini recalled that when she packed, "I just threw in one pair of socks." Gonzalo Barrientos has donned one pair of pants so often that his wallet tore a hole in the left pocket. Mario Gallegos has been washing the same few clothes at a city Laundromat, with the help of his Santana CDs.
And after so much sacrifice, they don't cotton much to the idea that their crusade may be imperfect. The Republicans are targeting Texas because the federal judges (two Republicans, one Democrat) barely changed the congressional boundaries that had been drawn back in 1991 - by a Democratic state legislature. And now the nonpartisan Center for Voting and Democracy sees that map as a Democratic power grab.
They respond by contending that the GOP would pack minority Texans into very few districts, in a way that would augment the clout of suburban Republican voters and doom the half-dozen white moderate Democrats who always win with help from blacks and Hispanics. Indeed, GOP lobbyist Grover Norquist has indicated that one goal is "to help remove centrist Democrats from Congress."
The Democrats' grander conspiracy theory has its flaws. There is no evidence that the White House played any role in launching the California recall against Democratic Gov. Gray Davis, and some exiles concede this. But their focus now is on going home and fighting the redistricting plan in court - mindful that politics these days is war without end. And at least they can reacquaint themselves with life's creature comforts.
As Barrientos remarked, over a cheap lunch at the Steak and Ale, "I've got a '54 Chevy convertible. Mellow yellow outside, green interior. I'm having it renovated, and it's almost done. Two nights ago, I dreamed about that damn car. Can't wait to drive it. Put the top down, cruise down the street. Yell out, `Hey, dudes, what's goin' on?' That would be cool."
Election Day '09 was a roller-coaster for election reformers. Instant runoff voting had a great night in Minnesota, where St. Paul voters chose to implement IRV for its city elections, and Minneapolis voters used IRV for the first time—with local media touting it as a big success. As the Star-Tribune noted in endorsing IRV for St. Paul, Tuesday’s elections give the Twin Cities a chance to show the whole state of Minnesota the benefits of adopting IRV. There were disappointments in Lowell and Pierce County too, but high-profile multi-candidate races in New Jersey and New York keep policymakers focused on ways to reform elections; the Baltimore Sun and Miami Herald were among many newspapers publishing commentary from FairVote board member and former presidential candidate John Anderson on how IRV can mitigate the problems of plurality elections.