“We’re not the bad guys in this thing,” says Sen. Jeff Wentworth, R-San Antonio, in defense of the Senate Republicans’ sanctions imposed this week (on top of the fines imposed last week) on the absent Democrats and their staffs.
The quorumless Senate remains “at ease” until Friday, following a three-minute meeting on Tuesday afternoon. At a noon Tuesday press conference, Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst said no further sanctions are “on the table,” but that the threat of a lawsuit by the Democrats for “official oppression” is without merit. From New Mexico, the Dems had warned that unless the sanctions were removed by 3pm Tuesday — which they were not — they may take additional legal action. Also on Tuesday, the Dems discovered that the AG’s office privately asked the U.S. Dept. of Justice for a quick “preclearance” of Dewhurst’s abandonment of the two-thirds rule as not illegal under the Voting Rights Act.
On the Senate floor Friday, Wentworth was the most vocal advocate for the new sanctions, calling for penalties against the Dems’ staffers over the objections of his GOP colleagues, and he told Naked City that the penalties “may increase partisan polarization” among his colleagues, but “it’s not our [the Republicans’] fault.” “To be truthful,” he said, “we don’t want to do any of this stuff,” but the Democrats don’t seem to understand they’re “not the majority anymore.”
Wentworth says he tried to reason with his San Antonio colleague, Democratic Caucus Chair Leticia Van de Putte, before Gov. Rick Perry called the current special session and the Democrats left for Albuquerque. “I told her I had 201/2 senators willing to vote for my fair map,” Wentworth recalled — a number that included Republican Bill Ratliff, Democrat Ken Armbrister, and “almost” one more Democrat. “She said she couldn’t accept a fair map because, she said, ‘I have to give my guys a win.'” Wentworth insists that his map could have prevailed against the less-fair proposals already adopted by the House and Senate. “My concern is that a fair and balanced map may not be on the table when [the Democrats] return.”
From Albuquerque, Van de Putte says she told Wentworth that the public testimony in Senate field hearings had been overwhelmingly against redistricting of any kind and that asking Democrats to vote against the interests of their constituents “would not give them a victory. … But it wasn’t just us. Several Republicans came to us privately and said, ‘Y’all take the heat, because I’m being threatened [with GOP primary opposition] in my district, but we’ve got to stop this.'” Van de Putte says the Republican senators insist on seeing this battle as simply a partisan issue between Democrats and Republicans, but in fact it’s about voting rights and the people of Texas. “They say they want a ‘fair’ plan — but if it’s such a fair plan, why do they have to change the rules to pass it? They say it’s ‘fair,’ but at some point it’s going to disenfranchise minorities — that’s like asking me to choose which one of my children to give up.”
Van de Putte said the Dems have not decided what to do should Perry call a third special session, but “by adding these sanctions that harm our constituents, they’ve just turned our resolve to concrete. It’s immovable.”
“They just don’t get it,” she continued. “They still think it’s a Democrat versus Republican thing. It’s about people of color, folks, it’s about rural people, it’s about Texans. … They’re treating us like they treat their children: ‘If you don’t behave, I’m going to take your credit cards.’ They don’t understand that people of color don’t respond to money threats.”
This article appears in August 22 • 2003.
