December 14, 2006

A Bang-up Election fit for the Last Frontier
By Jack D. McNamara

Surprise, surprise. Democrat Ciro Rodriguez beat Republican Henry Bonilla Tuesday. Even in Brewster County.

On Tuesday, December 12 Texas voters of the newly configured 23rd District went to the polls in their 20 counties to cast their votes in what will probably be the last election of the year.

It is a year in which a major American political change took place. The Republican majority which had taken the U.S. House of Representatives in 1994, the Presidency in 2000 and 2004, and the U.S. Senate in 2002 was routed by Democrats.

The Democrats already control the Senate, though by only a single vote. The Democrats also control the U.S. House by 29 or 30 votes. On Saturday a Democrat, William Jefferson, was reelected to his New Orleans seat. In Florida there is a possible court challenge. And in Ohio incumbent Republican Deborah Pryce has won a recount.

But in the past week most attention has been on our remote congressional district which stretches from San Antonio to El Paso, mostly Rio Grande border counties.

We are under this spotlight because on June 28 the U.S. Supreme Court rejected the configuration of the 23rd District as it was drawn and represented by Republican Henry Bonilla. The Court struck down a 2003 redistricting by the Texas Legislature’s Republican majority. The major effect of the Court’s decision was to make the district and adjoining districts competitive again for possible Hispanic majorities in accordance with the 1965 Voting Rights Act, as amended.

The Supreme Court case was won by the activist Hispanic organizations litigating and defeating the State of Texas in the federal courts. The case is League of United Latin American Citizens et al. v. Perry, Governor of Texas, et al.

The significance of the Court’s action was that the 2006 U.S. Supreme Court, with two new conservative appointees, upheld the constitutionality of the Act which allows the federal courts to overturn the actions of state and local elected officials who discriminate against protected minorities.

The practical effect of the newly drawn court districts suddenly moved Representative Bonilla — elected seven times since 1992 — into a new district possibly dominated by Hispanic Democrats.

In order to get to that result the Court ordered an open primary to be conducted on the national Election Day, November 7. Bonilla, six Democrats and an Independent signed up to run. If no one gained at least 50% of the vote, the Court directed a runoff.

Henry Bonilla, with 14 years’ name recognition and a $2 million campaign fund, got 48% plus. Bonilla’s challengers got 52% minus. Ciro Rodriguez led the challengers with 20%, which put him behind Bonilla by 28%, of course. The Texas Governor set the runoff for December 12, the same day Texas’s Roman Catholics celebrate the Feast of the Virgin of Guadalupe.

For the past 14 years we have been witness to a congressional election in which Bonilla and his Republicans buried their Democratic, Libertarian and Independent opponents with political cash. In the early 1990s we contributed to Bonilla and voted for him also. But not this year. The nation is fed up with this Republican Party and its leaders. They reek of failure.

As the nation absorbed the significance of the November victory, its attention turned toward this district. The conventional wisdom was that Bonilla would once again prevail. His opponent was Ciro Rodriguez, who got 20% of the November 7 vote.

In the last week, however, the Democrats woke up, which means they sent money, perhaps $1 million. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee decided they would rather have Rodriguez than Bonilla in the U.S. House and suddenly there was a contest.

A survey by WOAI-TV of San Antonio released December 4 reported that Bonilla’s lead was down to 53%—46%. Bonilla was getting 70% of “white” votes and Rodriguez 72% of Hispanic votes. The poll reported that those who voted for someone other than Bonilla on November 7 were breaking for Rodriguez by a 3 to 1 margin. But, of course, Bonilla was still ahead.

A week ago, Bonilla “went negative,” as the pols say. This excited the chattering class because when an incumbent with a huge cash advantage goes “negative” it means the incumbent is worried.

Bonilla held a press conference and broadcast an ad (complete with a retired FBI agent) alleging that Rodriguez sponsored “a new law to free terrorists.” In fact it was a 1999 bill which was co-sponsored by 128 fellow House members and favored by Republican Presidential candidate George W. Bush in the 2000 election.

The ad was so bad that the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg Center Political Fact Check (http://www.FactCheck.org) singled it out as “Campaign Distortions in Texas Runoff.”

Bonilla’s mud slinging caught our attention and that of the national press as well. “Negative Campaigning Marks Texas Runoff” was published by the New York Times on December 10. From the Washington Post on December 11, “Runoff in Tex 23rd May Show Impact of 2006 Redistricting.” And the Los Angeles Times on December 11 published, “Runoff in redrawn Texas District could be a tight race.” Our favorite is the Fort Worth Star Telegram’s AP story by Suzanne Gamboa, a veteran reporter who was in West Texas in the 1990s, “Texas runoff highlights Latino voting rights.” This is a district which is now 61% Hispanic.

Indeed it does. The election on December 12 was about the long struggle of Hispanic activist organizations for fair treatment in the political process. •

(Also published by the Big Bend Sentinel of Marfa, Texas December 14, 2006.)