Burnt Orange Report

Dems to file another Suit over Sanctions

By Byron LaMasters

After several days of sanctions and fines, which the Democratic senators in New Mexico refuse to pay, it looks as if they will file a lawsuit this afternoon to prevent Republicans from imposing sanctions on their office staff. The Houston Chronicle reports:

Texas' Democratic state senators are threatening criminal and civil action against the governor and other Republicans if their parking spaces, cellular phones and mail service are not restored today.

Republican senators have stripped these privileges and others from the offices of 11 Democratic senators in an attempt to force them back to the Capitol from Albuquerque, where they fled three weeks ago to block GOP-backed congressional redistricting.

All but one of the chamber's 12 Democrats are in Albuquerque.

The Democrats say their constituents are being harmed by the sanctions, and they have no choice but to fight back.

"We're not threatening, we're promising," said Democratic Sen. Royce West of Dallas. "We can't sit idly by."

David Beckwith, a spokesman for Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst, who presides over the Senate, said he welcomed the next legal action.

"The claims are ridiculous," he said. "We would welcome an early judicial determination on their merit."

Gov. Rick Perry said the sanctions were Senate business.

"The Senate has always been an institution where the members along with the lieutenant governor make the decisions. It should stay that way," Perry said.

"This issue is about 11 members who decided to leave town and not do their jobs," the governor said. "By doing so, the work of the state of Texas has ground to a halt."

The Democrats gave the Senate until 3 p.m. today to lift the sanctions.

Otherwise they threatened to take action under sections of the state Penal Code dealing with abuse of official capacity and official oppression, crimes that for some violations carry felony penalties including prison time.

The senators declined to say how they would present criminal complaints to a prosecutor or grand jury.

The Democrats, who claim the congressional redistricting effort and Senate action violate voting rights of ethnic minorities, also threatened civil court action under a state law that prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, religion, color, sex or national origin. That law allows the injured party to obtain an injunction. It also provides misdemeanor penalties punishable by a fine up to $1,000 and a year in jail.

Of course, both sides continued to play the racial rhetoric.

The rhetoric in the interstate debate intensified Monday, as Democrats accused Republicans of telling blacks and Hispanics in Texas to "move to the back of the bus."

The sanctions, they said, set up a "class system" based on race.

"Under the sanctions, Texans who live in Anglo districts represented by Republicans get more and better services and resources than those who live in minority districts," said Sen. Leticia Van de Putte of San Antonio, the chairwoman of the Senate Democratic Caucus and a Hispanic.

Beckwith declined to comment on the racial allegations. Last week he apologized for sarcastically linking the Democrats to civil rights pioneer Rosa Parks, a black woman who refused in 1955 to give up her seat at the front of an Alabama bus.

Beckwith had said the Democrats thought they were "Rosa Parks II."

Perry, Dewhurst and all the Senate Republicans are Anglo. Nine of the 11 Democrats in Albuquerque are black or Hispanic, and the other two are Anglos whose districts are largely black or Hispanic.

The Democrats contend that race is at the heart of the redistricting issue. Republicans note, however, that the U.S. representatives who likely would lose their seats under redistricting proposals are Anglos.

And the Republicans are sorely mistaken if they think that sanctions will encourage Democrats to come home or compromise. It's only strengthened the Democrats resolve.

Last week, Republican senators present at the Capitol voted to fine the runaways for each day of their absence, and then instituted additional sanctions to enforce the fines.

The 11 senators' staffs said Monday that the sanctions so far were not hurting morale.

"It's like bombing London," said Ian Randolph, legislative director for Sen. Eddie Lucio of Brownsville. "It just strengthens our resolve to support what our bosses are doing."

They described the sanctions as an annoyance, making staffers park far away, lug mail to the Capitol extension rather than having it picked up and hunt down news without subscriptions to hometown papers.

"Aside from the emergency paper clip rationing, we're all doing fine," said Graham Keever, general counsel for Sen. Gonzalo Barrientos of Austin.

Only three cell phones were cut off. They belonged to Sens. Frank Madla of San Antonio, Eliot Shapleigh of El Paso and Judith Zaffarini of Laredo, said Patsy Shaw, secretary of the senate.

The Dallas Morning News described the new sanctions:

Orange cones blocked parking spaces of the Democratic senators' staffs, a part of the sanctions, which also include loss of cellphone, purchasing and mail privileges, floor passes, travel, conference rooms and subscriptions.

But Democrats will be resourceful, even if they have to run carpools, ration paper clips and take out their mail.

As a result, many of the displaced staffers had to stop work periodically to feed parking meters. But work continued, they said.

"It's pretty much business as usual. Everybody found a way to get to work," said Graham Keever, chief lawyer for Sen. Gonzalo Barrientos, D-Austin. "Other than the severe paper clip rationing that we've instituted, we're in good shape."

Mr. Keever noted that mail pickup was among the privileges suspended Friday.

"The mail guy will literally walk down the hall and not stop at Democratic offices," he said.

The absent senators' Democratic House colleagues, meanwhile, announced they were organizing carpools to free up state parking space for the senate staffers.

"Our goal is to free more than 50 spaces in the Capitol garages so that more senate staffers can continue to park free," said Rep. Pete Gallego of Alpine.

In an editorial today, the Dallas Morning News lamented the end of bipartisanship in the Senate.

Last week the Quorum Report harshly criticized Republicans for their failure to sanction a Republican colleague in 1997 who was a convicted sex offender, while finding it necessary to sanction the Democratic senators in ABQ currently. Yesterday, however, the Quorum Report criticized Democrats for the racial rhetoric:

On Friday, this observer wrote an opinion/analysis piece raising the specter that the real cost of escalating sanctions against Texas Democrats was to weaken the Texas Senate in its institutional competition with the Texas House and the Governor's office. We pointed to how the institution had sidestepped such fissures in the Drew Nixon (R-Carthage) era.

But the self-inflicted wounds on the Senate are not exclusively a Republican phenomena.

Without commenting on whether or not the Senate Democrats should have broken the quorum, it is fair to criticize their heightened racial rhetoric. They have all but accused their Republican colleagues of being racist.

Some of the statements emanating from New Mexico and their supporters are couched in language suggesting that the current battle is little more than the racist expression of an all white Republican Party.

The rhetoric reached its height around the time that the Democratic senators sent their open letter to President Bush. It had the feel of trying to inject the Texas redistricting battle into presidential campaign politics. If that was the strategy, it was punctured by the California recall issue and emergence of Arnold Schwarzenegger as a candidate for Governor.

There should be some news about the Democratic lawsuit coming out at 3 PM. I'll update when necessary.

Posted by Byron LaMasters at August 19, 2003 02:18 PM | TrackBack