Point Austin: Doggett at Risk

Once again, the issue is turnout.

Just as historically low turnout embarrassed the recent city elections, so is low voter participation threatening the Demo­cratic primary election now in progress. Early voting ends May 25 (election day is May 29), and as of Tuesday, all of 1.6% of registered Travis County voters – 9,698 citizens – had voted in the Demo­cratic primary. (The GOP is at 1.75%, still nothing to brag about.) Hays County is reportedly worse, prompting longtime Demo­cratic U.S. Rep. Lloyd Doggett – whose new District 35 now runs from Eastern Travis through Hays and Caldwell down I-35 to San Antonio – to tell me bluntly on Tuesday, "If we can't get more people out to vote, I'm not going back to Washington. If we can't get more people out to Seventh Street [his campaign office] to volunteer to get out the vote, I won't be going back to Washington."

There are plenty of explanations for the low turnout, most prominently the radical redistricting imposed by the Republican-dominated Legislature, the consequent lengthy postponement of the primaries, culminating in the near-collision and consequent public confusion of the May 12, City Council election with the May 14, opening of early voting in the primaries. Some people think they've already voted in the primaries; others were puzzled that they couldn't find Doggett (among many other seemingly missing candidates) on their city ballots; others (notably thousands of just-graduated college students, and plenty of vacationers) have left town.

Even voters aware of the next election in line, will be surprised to discover a congressional ballot that doesn't look at all familiar: voters in Windsor Park and Hyde Park, for example, long accustomed to voting for favorite son Doggett, will find their Democratic congressional choice reduced to CD 25's Elaine M. Hen­der­son of Lago Vista – no doubt a fine person, who has no visible campaign presence at all and will be fed unceremoniously to a GOP shoo-in, based in Fort Worth, in the fall.

Guests at the Tea Party

In short, as Doggett also points out, whatever happens in CD 35, most of Travis County (roughly 79%) will be represented by GOP "tea-party sympathizers" after Nov­ember. This is a direct consequence of the Republican redistricting that chopped Travis into five districts, anchoring all of them elsewhere. To hear GOP lawyer and former state Rep. Terral Smith tell it in Monday's Statesman ("Law doesn't entitle Austin to a Democrat"), Aus­tinites "exorcised" [sic] about redistricting should instead be grateful, because we'll now have five Congressmen responsive to our needs.

If you believe that, you haven't been paying attention – and that's what they're counting on.

Doggett's San Antonio primary opponent, Bexar County Tax-Assessor Collector Sylvia Romo, offered me a few reasons why Travis County voters should support her instead of Doggett. She said East Aus­tin "mirrors Bexar County" in its demographics and circumstances, that Doggett has not been effective at working across party lines, and that her financial expertise will be especially useful in budget matters: "Anyone that has negotiated with the IRS," she told me, "can negotiate with anybody." She had less to say about the fact that, sans Doggett, Travis County will be left entirely without hometown congressional representation. More importantly, she seemed remarkably willing – at least for campaign purposes – to believe that the main problem in Congress is a lack of Democrats like herself, "able to talk with both sides, and see things from different perspectives." That doesn't sound like a terribly accurate comprehension of the current U.S. House, dominated by an intransigent GOP majority – but perhaps that's how it looks from the office of the Bexar County tax assessor-collector.

Numbers Needed

Which leads us back by degrees to Dog­gett, who's been working hard in Bexar County – home to a majority of the district's residents – but adds that at one time or another in his career, beginning in 1995, he has represented nearly half of all his new would-be constituents. During that time, he's been one of the most progressive voices in Con­gress, fighting the partisan battles, yes, but supported strongly enough by a Dem­o­cratic Austin base built over a generation that he hasn't hesitated to buck his party or his president – particularly on matters of peace and war – when he believed that needed doing. He's got a long and progressive record on education, the environment, health care, civil liberties, and he's been an effective advocate in bringing to Travis County federal support for programs and infrastructure – all good reasons why the GOP, beginning with Tom DeLay, has spent more than a decade trying hard to get rid of him.

As Mayor Lee Leffingwell put it last week, "Our only hope to maintain a voice for our Austin values in Congress – our only hope to keep a neighbor in Congress to whom we can turn to on personal, local, and national concerns – is to pitch in now to work with the 21% of Travis County that can cast a ballot for Lloyd."

Doggett says he's still "hopeful and encouraged by the response of the voters" he meets on the stump, but he remains concerned about those early voting figures. "We've just got to have turnout" from his supporters who know his record, he says, or the raw voting numbers just won't be sufficient to win this race.

If you live in what's left of Travis Coun­ty's only Democratic district, that's surely a good enough reason to go to the polls.

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The Doggett campaign office is at 1713 E. Seventh, 487-9983. More info at www.votedoggett.com.