Richard Michael Pruitt / DMN
State Sen. Judith Zaffirini packs up paperwork in her
Albuquerque hotel for the trip home to Laredo after
six weeks in exile.
Perry calls third remap sessionGovernor makes move as Dems head home
05:26 AM CDT on Wednesday, September 10, 2003
A deeply divided Texas Legislature convenes Monday for yet another work session after the collapse of a boycott by Senate Democrats and a demand by Gov. Rick Perry that lawmakers finally redraw congressional boundaries to benefit the GOP.
"We have work to do," said the Republican governor, who summoned lawmakers to return next week for a third special session.
After six weeks in self-imposed exile in New Mexico, the Democrats prepared Tuesday to return to Texas, saying the "betrayal" of one of their own had changed the terrain of their fractious battle over political power.
Democrats denounced the governor's decision to recall lawmakers as an expensive, unnecessary and partisan exercise. Republicans hailed it as a way of rectifying congressional boundaries that give Democrats too many seats.
"These special sessions have cost Texas taxpayers over $8 million at a time when Texans are being denied much needed health and educational services," said Sen. Juan Hinojosa, D-McAllen.
WHAT'S NEXT
• Senate Democrats plan to leave Albuquerque and head to Laredo, where they will attend a court hearing Thursday in the federal lawsuit they filed that accuses the GOP redistricting efforts of trampling minority rights. • After the court hearing, they will return to their home districts and prepare for the special session that Gov. Rick Perry has ordered to begin Monday.
• Mr. Perry said the House and Senate should again try to redraw congressional district boundaries for Texas' 32 U.S. House seats, now controlled by Democrats, 17-15. Republicans say recent voting trends show that Texas should have more GOP representation in Washington.
• The governor said the Legislature should take up other issues, including adjustment of certain school districts' funding; government reorganization; the dates of certain elections and the counting of mail-in ballots; and the modification of the filing period and election dates for Texas primaries.
Associated Press
Republican Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst welcomed the planned return of the Democrats as an opportunity to finally "address the important issues facing the people of Texas."
"As I have said from the beginning of the redistricting debate, the people of Texas want the business of the Texas Senate to be done in Texas, and not New Mexico or Washington," Mr. Dewhurst said.
The renegade Democrats said they will travel to Laredo to attend a court hearing Thursday on their federal lawsuit challenging the effort by Mr. Perry to reconfigure the lines of the state's 32 congressional districts. Democrats say the attempt would violate the rights of minority voters.
Republicans, who hold 15 seats, hope to add another five or six seats and assert a majority status that they say better reflects recent voting patterns in Texas.
Pushing primary back
In his formal call Tuesday that establishes the agenda for the special session, Mr. Perry cleared the way for lawmakers to move the date of next year's primary from March to spring or summer – when candidates would be running in the reshaped districts. Pushing the date back would give Republicans time to fend off legal challenges to any new congressional map.
He also said the Legislature should take up a proposal to transfer two high-profile programs – the Texas performance review and school district audit program – from the office of a GOP rival, Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn.
"We can do multiple things at once," Mr. Perry told reporters during a stop in Dallas. "I full well expect that over the course of the next few weeks, you'll see the Legislature address a host of issues."
The loud battle over redistricting has occupied Texas politicians for months, first when House Democrats fled to Oklahoma in May to block consideration of the issue and then when Senate Democrats left for Albuquerque six weeks ago to break a quorum.
The governor, frustrated by the Democrats' departure but resolute in his insistence that lawmakers draw a new map to boost GOP numbers in Congress, said he would continue calling back-to-back special sessions until the holdouts returned.
The break in the boycott came last week with the announcement by Sen. John Whitmire, D-Houston, that he would join Republicans in establishing a quorum and fight the issue on the Senate floor. Twenty-one of the Senate's 31 members must be present for business to be conducted.
Mr. Whitmire said he returned to Texas to protect Senate traditions of bipartisanship and consensus that he said shield minority points of view, no matter what the issue.
His Democratic colleagues denounced his decision as capitulation to the wishes of U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay and White House political adviser Karl Rove.
"Despite his rhetoric, [Mr. Whitmire's] move amounts to trading away the electoral voices of the millions of rural and minority Texans we are in Albuquerque to defend," the 10 remaining senators said in a statement Tuesday.
"This betrayal by a former member of the Texas 11 ... makes it imperative that we ... return to Texas to fight Whitmire and the Republicans to prevent this partisan power-grab. We intend to fight the passage of the Whitmire map."
A spokeswoman said Mr. Whitmire "is disregarding their negative comments. ... They're his friends. They're under a lot of stress."
Also Online
Video: Lee McGuire reports
Maps:
• Current Texas Congressional districts
• House map, passed 7/29
• Senate map, proposed 7/23More Politics The battle within
With the Democrats abandoning their boycott, Republican leaders now face another obstacle – reaching agreement within their party over the shape of a redistricting map.
Mr. Dewhurst met Tuesday with Republican Sens. Robert Duncan of Lubbock and Kip Averitt of Waco to discuss how to keep the congressional districts in their area from being divided.
Mr. Averitt has complained that a House proposal would put Waco and Killeen in different districts. Mr. Duncan has vowed to fight a map backed by House Speaker Tom Craddick that would move his hometown of Midland to its own district, potentially diminishing the chances that Lubbock would have its own member of Congress.
Mr. Dewhurst has expressed confidence that the House and Senate will come to an agreement. But a spokesman for Mr. Craddick said no negotiations were under way between the House speaker and key senators on the issue.
Staff writers Robert T. Garrett reported from Albuquerque and Wayne Slater from Austin.
E-mail rtgarrett@dallasnews.com and wslater@dallasnews.com
Online at: http://www.dallasnews.com/latestnews/stories/091003dntexremap.13e53.html
