Doggett vs. the Doctor

Lloyd Doggett (Photo by John Anderson)

The odds of Columbus emergency room physician Donna Campbell, a Republican, unseating eight-term Democratic Congressman Lloyd Doggett are pretty slim (and slimmer yet for the Libertarian candidate, Austinite Jim Stutsman). But don't tell that to the tea partiers – they've gotten it into their heads that, because seven of Congressional District 25's counties are rural and President Obama's popularity has taken a tumble, Doggett is vulnerable to the Colorado County doctor. That logic effectively ignores the eighth county, Travis, and its ability to overwhelm the rest (see "Stuff Like This Makes Your Face Twitch," Oct. 8).

Still, lightning does occasionally strike, so it's worth hearing out the Republican.

"Mr. Doggett, while he has to be applauded for his lifetime achievement in service, his policies I do not feel reflect our district," says Campbell. One example, she says, is health care, where the federal government has made "a tremendous power grab." Given her profession, it's an area where she can speak with some authority. One of the major arguments for expanding health care coverage is that it would relieve pressure from people coming to ERs for what could be handled with preventive care. "People now, if they are indigent, the programs are out there for them to be able to go to a primary care doctor," Campbell says. "But because the emergency room is so accessible, it is used for discretionary medical care."

Donna Campbell

Campbell calls for the repeal of "Obama­care" and says Congress should allow the sale of insurance across state lines, thus creating more competition between carriers. It's an issue over which Doggett has already been targeted – he was heavily involved in crafting the health care law, and he made national headlines last year when videos went viral of tea partiers shouting him down at town hall meetings and hounding him to his car. Yet, the nature of CD 25 is such that Doggett also can criticize the new law. While conservative Democrats across the nation hold Obama at arm's length, Doggett does so as well by pointing out the obvious – that the president is considerably more centrist than those hysterically crying "socialism!" believe (including Campbell, who told a tea party rally last year that "socialism looms on our horizon"). The legislation didn't go far enough, he says. "I only wish this bill were as good as they say it is bad," he says. "There are a number of shortcomings in this legislation. But they're not the shortcomings the tea party is pointing to. For example, postponing the effective date for most of the provisions until 2014 has nothing to do with good policy; it only related to the administration's insistence that they would not go above an arbitrary cost figure even if it was paid for in the total cost of the bill." Somewhat similarly to Campbell's position, Doggett continues: "The relegating of so much responsibility to the states and having separate exchanges in each state through which you'll purchase insurance rather than one national exchange is another real shortcoming. We have significant work to do to strengthen and improve this bill."

Both candidates agree that the economy is this campaign's major issue. "Our economy doesn't seem to be as robust as before; it's a softer economy," Campbell says. "We have got such job loss across the nation." She acknowledges that some of the groundwork for the current crisis was laid before Democrats came to power, but "it's gotten worse since the ultraliberals took over in the Congress." But on economic issues, again, the liberal Doggett can distance himself from Obama, pointing out that he opposed the corporate bailouts, regardless of which president proposed them.

Republicans have also gone after "the Doggett amendment," a provision he added to an education appropriations bill this summer, requiring Gov. Rick Perry to ensure that certain stimulus funding be "used to supplement and not supplant State formula funding" for education. The provision applied only to Texas. On Campbell's website, she claims that the measure put "unconstitutional language into an appropriations bill stripping school districts and the state of Texas from education funds unless they ceded control to the federal government." Republicans complain that bowing to the provision would bind the hands of future Legislatures and say the Texas Con­sti­tu­tion forbids the governor from doing that.

Doggett defends the move, saying it was necessary to prevent Perry and state lawmakers from using federal money meant for school job creation to backfill shortfalls in the state budget instead, as they did last year. "There was never any intent to get Governor Perry to do any more than what his constitutional powers allow him to do," says Doggett. In fact, he says, in order to "get stimulus money in the first place," Perry signed an application form binding Texas to a three-year commitment toward spending the money on education. The amendment, says Doggett, "is not requiring him to do more in terms of his powers as governor than what he exercised without raising this funny constitutional argument last year.

"As far as the overall purpose of the amendment, it is to do exactly what Rick Perry and every Republican in Congress said they want, and that's to get the money to Texas schools. They didn't want any federal money coming here; they only got interested in crying about whether Texas schools were getting their fair share after this bill passed over Republican objections.

"I had a couple members come up to me afterward and say, 'Can I get this for my state?'" claims Doggett.

Campbell also slams Doggett's leadership in the anti-war camp, also writing on her website, "Lloyd Doggett voted twice to cut off funding for our troops while in harm's way. An early withdrawal from Iraq, as he suggested, would have lost the war and left the area under the influence of terrorists and an unstable Iran. Instead, we can now bring our troops home safely and claim victory."

Again, war is another issue that finds Doggett to the left of the president. He has spoken out against Obama's Afghanistan policy, and as for Campbell's charge, "That's utter nonsense," he says. "No country has gained more from our going into Iraq than Iran. We strengthened Iran by this action. ... It's a very dear price in blood and treasure for the result, which is a failure to have a political climate that assures any long-term stability in Iraq."

Traditional left-right issues will also work against Campbell. She is staunchly opposed to abortion, even in cases of rape or incest, and says there are "so many people waiting to adopt" (though that doesn't move her to include gays and lesbians among those many). And she's opposed to minimum wage laws, which Doggett gleefully points out.

Ultimately, whether Doggett's liberal leanings fairly represent CD 25's other seven counties will likely become moot. After next year's redistricting, he says, Texas will likely end up with four new congressional districts, and the numbers will probably force some districts to shrink in size. Doggett thinks one of the new districts will have to more closely remember the old, Austin-centric CD 10 that he represented before Tom DeLay and the GOP tore it apart in 2003, forcing Doggett to move.

Still, presuming they retain the redistricting majority in the next Legislature, the Repub­lic­ans may find a way to stick it to him again, Doggett says: "I do not underestimate the imagination of Republicans to try to reconfigure the district to make it as difficult as possible."