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Posted on Sat, Aug. 16, 2003
GOP turns up heat on absent 11
Star-Telegram Austin Bureau
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS/HARRY CABLUCK Gov. Rick Perry emerges from a closed meeting with Senate Republicans on Friday in Austin.
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS/JAKE SCHOELLKOPF Texas Sen. Eliot Shapleigh, D-El Paso, signs a Texan's T-shirt Friday at the hotel in Albuquerque where Shapleigh and 10 other Senate Democrats are staying. AUSTIN - The threat of a $57,000 fine couldn't persuade the 11 self-exiled Senate Democrats to return to Texas, so their Republican colleagues decided Friday to up the ante.
They voted to take away the Democrats' prime parking places in the driveway that rings the Capitol, along with the parking places assigned to the Democrats' Austin staff members. The same goes for the state-owned cellphones assigned to three Senate Demo- crats.
Republicans said the gestures -- which also include limiting the purchasing of office supplies and access to Capitol meeting rooms -- prove they are serious about compelling the Democrats to end their 18-day standoff in Albuquerque, N.M., and return to Austin to finish redrawing the state's 32 congressional districts.
The Democrats in Albuquerque -- just as they did Tuesday when the Republicans remaining in Austin voted to fine them up to $5,000 for each day they are absent -- scoffed at the increased sanctions.
"Just as the fines were illegal and unenforceable, these additional punitive actions are illegal and unenforceable," said Eliot Shapleigh of El Paso, one of the 11 Democrats who effectively shut down the Senate by denying the chamber the two-thirds membership present to constitute a quorum.
But back in Austin just hours after the Republican senators voted to impose the latest sanctions, Democratic staffers were told they could no longer obtain such office necessities as copy paper or message pads.
The secretary of the Senate's office was instructed to cancel subscriptions to Democratic senators' hometown newspapers and to bar 88 Democratic staffers' access to state parking lots and garages.
Several staffers, who said they would either take the bus to work or make other parking arrangements, tried to take the sanctions in stride.
"As long as we can, we are going to be working for the people of our district," said Deece Eckstein, chief of staff for Rodney Ellis, D-Houston. "All of this other stuff is pure silliness."
But the Republican senators who voted to impose the sanctions insisted that they had to protect the institution's integrity.
The Republicans said that the Democrats' leaving the state sets a precedent under which any 11 senators could walk away any time they fear that they may be about to lose a floor vote.
"This is sad," said Sen. Steve Ogden, R-Bryan. "There is not a single person here who wants to do this, and we should not have to do this. ... Our colleagues in New Mexico are setting a terrible example."
The Democrats broke the Senate quorum to protest Republican Gov. Rick Perry's decision to call a second special session on congressional redistricting just two years after a federal court implemented a plan that can remain in place until 2011.
Perry insists that the Legislature has the duty to draw the district lines and says the court-drawn plan, which resulted in the election of 17 Democrats and 15 Republicans, does not adequately reflect Texas' voting patterns. Republicans control both state houses and all statewide elective offices.
Before Friday's action on the Senate floor, Perry met in private with 16 of the Senate's 19 Republican members and the only Democrat still in Austin, Ken Armbrister of Victoria.
Armbrister voted against the sanctions.
Perry said after the meeting that although he is committed to pushing ahead with redistricting, the 18-day impasse has grown far beyond the question of congressional boundaries.
"The blue-collar worker out in the state of Texas most likely couldn't tell you a substantial amount about redistricting," Perry told reporters. "But they can tell you about going to work and the consequences of not going to work. And that is what's resonating with the people across the state of Texas today."
Shapleigh said the governor's comments show that the Republicans are out of touch. During the recent legislative hearings across the state, he pointed out, more than 90 percent of the 2,000-plus witnesses told lawmakers that middecade redistricting was unnecessary.
"The blue-collar workers in my district, many of whom are Hispanic and know what it means to have to fight for the right to vote, understand redistricting," Shapleigh said. "The blue-collar workers in my district are the ones who fight our nation's wars to protect the right to vote."
John Moritz, (512) 476-4294 jmoritz@star-telegram.com
