Posted on 12/28/2003 8:06:34 AM PST by Theodore R.
By KELLEY SHANNON Associated Press Writer
AUSTIN Dominance was the magic word for Texas politics in 2003.
Republicans dominated the political landscape as they made deep budget cuts, placed limits on civil lawsuits and pushed through a GOP congressional redistricting plan despite the protests and road trips of Democrats.
”Texas politics? Year of the elephant,” summed up Tony Proffitt, a veteran political consultant who was an aide to the late Democratic Lt. Gov. Bob Bullock.
The GOP already held all the statewide offices and had the edge in the Texas Senate before the 2002 elections. With a sweeping victory, Republicans took control of the Texas House for the first time since Reconstruction and proceeded to remake state government.
”We had the first Republican majority in both houses of the Legislature in the last 130 years, and they delivered real results on some issues that are very important to the people of Texas,” said Ted Royer, spokesman for the Republican Party of Texas.
Democrats, on the other hand, waged headline-grabbing fights but in the end were rolled over by the Republican parade.
All the nation watched as 51 House Democrats fled to Ardmore, Okla., for four days in May to break a quorum and kill a congressional redistricting bill.
Redistricting was the subject of three subsequent special sessions called by Republican Gov. Rick Perry, with 11 Senate Democrats blocking a redistricting bill in the second special session by jetting off to Albuquerque, N.M., for six weeks to bust a quorum.
”I am both excited and proud about the resurgence of enthusiasm in the Texas Democratic Party, which was fueled by our state reps and senators who had the courage to stand up and use whatever means necessary to block the partisan redistricting power grab,” state party chairman Charles Soechting said.
The senators‘ boycott was broken when one of their own, Sen. John Whitmire of Houston, defected and returned to the Capitol. With the quorum they needed to do business, Republicans passed a redistricting bill that aims to give the GOP up to 22 seats in the 32-member Texas congressional delegation.
Democrats hold a 17-15 advantage in the delegation and don‘t want to relinquish it.
U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay of Texas pressed the redistricting effort, saying Republicans wanted more Texans from their party in Congress to reflect the state‘s conservative voting patterns.
Democrats accused DeLay of strong-arming state leaders and inflicting Washington-style partisanship on a state where President Bush, the former Texas governor, had championed its tradition of bipartisanship.
By December, the two parties were still fighting over redistricting, this time in a federal courtroom. A three-judge panel will decide, perhaps by the start of the new year, whether the new map violates the federal Voting Rights Act, which seeks to provide minorities fair representation in government.
The year also gave Texans a new crop of state political leaders.
Republican Tom Craddick of Midland was chosen House speaker after spending years in the Legislature‘s minority party. He ruled the House his way, and there were few cracks in the GOP armor on major votes.
Newly elected GOP Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst led the Senate and emerged as a surprisingly bipartisan leader early in the year. Then came the nasty feuding over redistricting between the two parties. Republicans even battled among themselves over the drawing of a congressional district in West Texas.
”He got caught up in the maelstrom of congressional redistricting and maybe got bumped around a little bit,” Proffitt said.
By the time the 140-day regular legislative session ended in June, lawmakers had overcome a $9.9 billion shortfall and written a $117 billion two-year budget that cut health and human services and assorted other programs. Legislators didn‘t raise taxes, though they increased certain state fees and fines.
Republican forces won passage of a bill that capped non-economic damages, like pain and suffering, in medical malpractice lawsuits and placed strict limits on the waging of other civil lawsuits. Voters validated the caps by approving a constitutional amendment in September.
Left hanging was an overhaul of school finance.
The Senate and House quarreled over how best to replace the state‘s share-the-wealth education funding system, nicknamed Robin Hood. Legislators left that massive undertaking for another year, with a special session likely next spring.
When lawmakers do tackle school finance, they won‘t have two veteran Republican state senators around to help them.
Sen. Bill Ratliff of Mount Pleasant, the former acting lieutenant governor, and Sen. Teel Bivins of Amarillo, nominated by Bush to be ambassador to Sweden, both announced they are resigning from the Legislature in early January.
12/28/03
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