Posted on 08/14/2003 8:16:51 AM PDT by Theodore R.
Perry signals firm stand on redistricting Associated Press
AUSTIN (AP) — A day after Senate Republicans voted to impose fines on their Democratic colleagues who are boycotting the chamber over congressional redistricting, Gov. Rick Perry on Wednesday indicated he would call another special session on redistricting and other issues.
"If there is work to be done, I expect the Legislature to be here conducting" it, Perry said, when asked if he would call another special session. "You could surmise that if they want to stay in Albuquerque, that's their choice, but there is work to be done in this state."
He also said the Legislature will pass a congressional redistricting bill this year. Two attempts by Republicans to pass one this year have failed and Senate Democrats are hoping to kill the third attempt.
Eleven Democratic senators broke a quorum and fled to Albuquerque, N.M., shortly before the second special session on congressional redistricting started more than two weeks ago. They said maps before the Legislature would hurt minorities and rural Texas. The senators' absence has brought the Senate to a standstill because without the Democrats, there are not enough senators in the 31-member chamber to take up business.
Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst has said if the Democratic senators show up in Texas he would instruct the Senate sergeant-at-arms to return them to the Senate chamber.
In Albuquerque, the Democrats said it was Perry's prerogative to call a special legislative session.
It is an example of Perry's failed leadership that he would "rather please the power brokers in Washington than the millions of farmers and ranchers who are outspoken against redistricting," said Sen. Leticia Van de Putte, chairwoman of the Senate Democratic Caucus.
Perry is allowed to call a 30-day special session on any issue. He has already called two since the regularly scheduled legislative session ended in June.
Under the vote Tuesday in the Senate, if the Democrats do not return to Austin by this afternoon, they will be fined $1,000. The fine will double for each day they miss, but it is not to exceed $5,000 a day.
The Democrats, likening the fine to a poll tax, have said it is illegal and that they will not pay it.
Dewhurst, in Irving on Wednesday at a transportation summit, said that some of the options for enforcing the penalties include deducting the money from the senators' postage and travel budgets or not allowing the senators on the Senate floor. He said the Attorney General's Office has assured him the sanctions are enforceable.
"We don't want our colleagues to have to pay a penny," Dewhurst said. "We want them to come back."
When asked, however, when he thought the Democrats would return, he said he be lieved it would be September.
Sen. Rodney Ellis of Houston said Wednesday it was 38 years ago this month that former President Lyndon B. Johnson struck down the poll tax and other barriers that kept minorities from participating in the democratic process.
"Republicans in the Senate and Lieutenant Governor David Dewhurst betrayed President Johnson's legacy by voting to impose a new poll tax on minority members of the Senate and those that represent minority communities," Ellis said.
Van de Putte, D-San Antonio, said the move was a "shameful return to the days of the Jim Crow laws" and "every single one of our Senate Republican colleagues who voted for it should be deeply ashamed.
Nine of the 11 Democrats boycotting the chamber are minorities.
Dewhurst dismissed the comments as political rhetoric.
Perry said he supported the Senate's efforts to get the Democrats back.
"I think the people of the state of Texas are frustrated, disappointed that they chose not to do their duty," he said.
Republicans, led by U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay of Sugar Land, have been pushing for lawmakers to come up with a new congressional redistricting map, saying recent voting trends show the state should have more GOP representation in Wash ington. Right now, Democrats have a 17-15 majority in the delegation.
Dewhurst said he has not talked to DeLay since June about redistricting.
DeLay also was at the transportation summit in Irving, but he dodged reporters' questions. Outside the summit, about two dozen protesters rallied around a giant inflated rat with a sign that read "Tom the Rat DeLay."
I thought Tom was a Republican.
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