Posted on 12/28/2003 7:58:17 PM PST by Theodore R.
Senate could get another maverick
Thursday, December 25, 2003
The Jan. 10 retirement of state Sen. Bill Ratliff, R-Mount Pleasant, could bring to the Senate someone as independent as he is.
The lone Democrat in the Jan. 20 special election is former House Education Committee chairman Paul Sadler of Henderson.
The main Republican candidates are state Rep. Tommy Merritt of Longview and former Tyler Mayor Kevin Eltife.
Sadler, 48, a plaintiff's attorney, started his freshman session in 1991 by lecturing his colleagues that a lottery was wrong, and then ran a brief and ill-fated campaign for speaker. But he buckled down and became a tough, steel-nerved fighter for public schools.
Sadler often talked of retiring to spend more time with his family but stayed in the House until 2002.
Merritt, a small business owner and political maverick who travels to a drummer few can hear, is friends with Democrats. He tried to pour sand in the gears of Republican House Speaker Tom Craddick's heavy-handed congressional redistricting machinery this year.
Merritt, 55, was one of the GOP legislators targeted with nasty mailers in the 2002 primary by the ultra-conservative group FreePAC, but still got almost 60 percent of the vote.
Some at the Capitol joke that Merritt's family will spend whatever it takes to keep Merritt in Austin and out of Longview. He has also filed for re-election to a fifth House term.
Eltife, 44, was a popular mayor until he was term-limited last year. He cut taxes and Tyler's city payroll. He's largely unknown in the rest of the district but expected to spend enough of his commercial real estate fortune to correct that.
Statewide Republicans such as Gov. Rick Perry and Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst probably would prefer Eltife to the unpredictable Merritt but may not endorse either.
Other Republicans in the race are former state Rep. Jerry Yost, 61, of Longview, who preceded Merritt in the House and got 30 percent against Ratliff in last year's GOP primary, and Bill Godsey, 46, a Longview small businessman who says "God has put me in this race."
Daryl Ware, 42, a railroad conductor from Marshall, is running as a Constitution Party candidate.
One knowledgeable handicapper calls it a three-way tossup between Merritt of Gregg County, Eltife of Smith County, and Sadler from the more rural eastern end of the district. He earlier represented Rusk, Panola and Harrison counties.
All three say they want to continue Ratliff's bipartisan effort on behalf of schools.
The district is about even between the parties, though Ratliff was repeatedly re-elected without problem after nosing out Sen. Richard Anderson in 1988 to become the first Republican senator from East Texas since Reconstruction.
Anderson briefly considered the race but then endorsed Sadler.
In a special election, all candidates are on the same ballot. If no one gets a majority, the top two, regardless of party, go to a runoff.
Merritt and Eltife are expected to battle for a runoff spot against Sadler. The winner will serve the remaining three years of Ratliff's term.
Dave McNeely's column appears Thursdays. Contact him at (512) 445-3644 or dmcneely@statesman.com.
Ahhh, nothing like some objective reading to start off the morning. :-)
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