Posted on 08/04/2003 1:11:49 PM PDT by hocndoc
Van de Putte says she expects redistricting measure to pass
By Guillermo X. Garcia Express-News Austin Bureau
Web Posted : 08/04/2003 12:00 AM
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — The organizer of the Senate Democratic walkout said Sunday that she expects a third special session on congressional redistricting will be called and that the politically divisive measure eventually will become law.
Democratic Texas Sens. Frank Madla (from left), Leticia Van de Putte, Eddie Lucio and Judith Zaffirini and her son Carlos Jr. say a prayer before Mass. They were at Risen Savior Catholic Church in Albuquerque, N.M., on Sunday. Jerry Lara/Express-News
Sen. Judith Zaffirini, D-Laredo, is greeted by Father Edward Rivera as Deacon Mark Bussemeier greets Sen. Frank Madla, D-San Antonio, after Sunday Mass at Risen Savior Catholic Church in Albuquerque, N.M. Eleven of Texas' 12 Democratic state senators are on their seventh day away from Texas to avoid a special session called by Gov. Rick Perry. # Maverick Democrat goes his own way San Antonio Sen. Leticia Van de Putte made the surprising comment to a pair of hometown Republicans in a private morning meeting.
"She said there will be a third (session) and that they will very probably have a vote on a map that will pass," Joe Solis, a candidate for the Bexar County Republican Party chairmanship, said of his meeting with Van de Putte.
Van de Putte acknowledged the statements but added that "there are a whole lot of 'ifs' attached."
Solis and Jim McGrody, who founded and runs a GOP Internet-based political action committee from San Antonio, made the weekend "Van to Van de Putte Tour" to try to persuade her to return to Texas with them.
Both said she politely declined the offer.
Along with the results of a poll conducted by McGrody on his southtexasrepublican.com Web site, the two came bearing treats. They brought empanadas from Van de Putte's favorite bakery, La Poblanita; her favorite brand of chips and salsa; flowers; and a balloon in the shape of a boot with Texas flag on it.
The poll consisted of an e-mail sent to the 6,000 Republicans who regularly visit the site. McGrody said there were 150 respondents, with 53 percent of those responding saying they favor redistricting and 40 percent in opposition.
Van de Putte, who as chairwoman of the Senate Democratic Caucus, planned and led the walkout to New Mexico, repeated her vow that the Texas 11 will remain here and kill any Senate redistricting effort during the current second special session.
Van de Putte's prediction of a third special session was predicated on several scenarios. They include "the Senate deciding to stay (in Austin), the House deciding to stay, the removal of the two-thirds rule," she said, and the settling of an internal Republican squabble between House Speaker Tom Craddick and Senate Jurisprudence committee chairman Robert Duncan of Lubbock.
"You'd agree that's a lot of ifs," she noted.
Van de Putte referred to a clash between Duncan, who heads the Senate committee charged with producing a redrawn map, and Craddick, who has told legislators he wants a congressional district to be based in Midland, his hometown.
The district ,which includes Midland, currently is anchored in Lubbock. Duncan, a Lubbock native, wants to keep it there.
Van de Putte also referred to a longstanding Senate rule, known as the two-thirds rule, which allows 11 senators to block a bill from coming to the floor for debate. Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst removed the rule to force Democrats to participate in the redistricting effort.
The Democrats decided instead to leave the state and are personally financing their stay in New Mexico, now seven days long, drawing on savings and officeholder accounts to pay the daily hotel and living expenses.
Van de Putte said she has taken out a loan against her life insurance policy to finance her stay here (about $200 a day) because she didn't feel it is right to take money out of the family budget.
Van de Putte was joined Sunday by three colleagues, Sens. Frank Madla of San Antonio, Eddie Lucio of Brownsville and Judith Zaffirini of Laredo, for Mass at Risen Savior Catholic Church. They were joined by members of Van de Putte's staff and Zaffirini's son, who spent the weekend visiting his mother.
Van de Putte became teary when relating how her eldest son, Henry, on Saturday announced to a religious retreat group in Kerrville his plans to become a lay minister, the first step to the priesthood.
The session was attended "by his best friends and by the entire family, except for his mother," she said. A legislative arrest warrant calls for Van de Putte, along with her AWOL colleagues, to be detained and returned to the Senate floor if they are found in Texas.
"The mommy in me said I should have been there," Van de Putte said. "But I can't."
Van de Putte was less sentimental when speaking to the Associated Press on Sunday about Gov. Rick Perry and Republican support in Washington for congressional redistricting in Texas.
"I don't know whose puppet strings are controlling which puppet at this point in the Republican Party," she said.
Perry spokeswoman Kathy Walt responded that Van de Putte is stooping to personal attacks to try to turn the issue away from the fact that the 11 senate Democrats "ran away from their responsibilities."
ggarcia@express-news.net
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
08/04/2003
Any business that is footing the bill for the 11 should be aired out and flogged.
By the way, what kind of "real" jobs do these 11 dolts have that allows them to take vacations?
Just goes to show ya that government isn't by the people and for the people... confirmed.
Trajan88
It does bother me that the press continues to treat this as a big joke and tries to curry sympathy for the Democrats as if they were run out of town, instead of choosing to leave by their own choice.
I don't have sympathy that she missed her son's big announcement or that others are apart from family members and I think it's disingenuous to suggest that mean old Republicans are keeping them away from their families.
They CHOSE to do what they did. They can't even deal with that fact, much less that the stalling tactics prove they would rather dishonor their state than dishonor their party. It's shameful.
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