Burnt Orange Report

Talking With The Chairman

By Damon McCullar

Howdy Folks! I'm starting a new segment here on BOR where I try to get answers to the concerns that I've seen in the comments regarding the Texas Democratic Party. I do this by interviewing the State Party Chairman, Charles Soechting. So read what Mr. Soechting has to say. Agree with it or not, but I ask everyone who comments to be civil in their remarks. By all means raise the issues that you care about in the comments as they will will serve as my basis for the next interview. Without further ado, my interview with the Texas State Democratic Party Chair, Mr. Charles Soechting.

The big news this week is that Ruben Hernandez has been named Texas Democratic Party Executive Director.

DCM: Tell us about yourself; tell us about your past, what you’ve done in the past, and what you’re doing now.

Soechting: I am 54 years old and I live in San Marcos, as ever generation of my family has for the last 5 generations (we’ve been here since the 1850’s) and I just think it’s one of those great opportunities to live where you want to live. I am married to Elizabeth. I was a single parent to a son, Charlie, who is now 28 and a lawyer in Dallas who just took the bar exam and has a legal internship in Dallas for a great Democratic law firm. I also have two darling daughters, Ashley and Caroline, ages 11 and 8, respectively. Background: It seems like I’ve been a lawyer forever, but I was actually 30 when I first starting practicing law. I’ve been a lawyer 24 years this year. I work for a firm called O’Quinn, Laminack and Pirtle, which is a big plus because it is one of the best Democratic law firms in the state. Before that, I was a solo practitioner for 20 years or so. Although a fair amount of my time was spent in Houston, I also tried lawsuits in San Marcos and Austin as well. In fact, when I was elected Chairman, the Republicans said that my election completed the buy out of the Texas Democratic Party by the trial lawyers and it has turned out that I actually have one of the toughest relationships with trial lawyers of any Chairman ever because by virtue of the very fact that I am a lawyer myself, both sides negotiate very hard on what we think is good for the Party. Before that, I was a Navel Officer and I had a commission as a JAG Officer while I was in law school, which is something we can probably leave out because, as I told you about the other day, it’s hard to explain that situation. But, to me, it was a great situation because I got the best of both worlds without having to be there for a long time like you were, but anyway, there was that. Then I was a State Trooper before law school and worked my way through law school as a Deputy Sheriff in the Court System of Houston. My other claim to fame is that probably I am one of the few ever State Chairs to have actually carried a Union Card. Immediately out of high school. I joined the Seafarer’s International Union and sailed on a merchant vessel for about 6 months. I learned that, while that was a good-paying job, it was better for me to go back and get my education at that point.

DCM: Alright. And now, you’re Chairman of the State Democratic Party. Tell us how that happened.

Soechting: Yeah, all the way from an engine room on the ST Avenger to being Chair of the Party. There are a lot of similarities to those two jobs, but anyway, Chair of the Democratic Party is a complex job. You are constantly working to better the Party and at the same time better the situations of all the different diverse interest groups in the Party. But, it’s a job that is easily done as long as someone understands that every interest group in our Democratic Party deserves to be heard and has a great wealth to bring to the Party as a whole. An average day in the life of a Chair is trying to determine where all I can go, where the Party’s resources are best spent, and working as I was just when this interview started with Representative Aaron Pena on trying to bring a caucus system back to Texas to increase the relevance of a huge state like Texas. We are huge in land size, number of people, and in diversity. Last Friday, I had lunch with Representative Alonzo and then today a conversation with Representative Pena working on just exactly how to make all of this happen. I’m proud to report that those two State Reps get it and that this could be something huge for Texas. I’m actually going to let them take the lead on that.

DCM: Alright. How long have you been in office now?

Soechting: Since October 25th of 2003.

DCM: So, what is the role of the Texas Democratic Party in politics in the state of Texas?

Soechting: Well, it depends on how active the Chairman chooses to be and how active Democratic office holders have been. My administration has been a different role for several reasons. For one, there are no statewide officeholders, and I hope to change that situation. The role of the State Democratic Party is to administer the primaries and that in and of itself is a huge task but we work very well with the Secretary of State’s office in doing that. We also convene the biannual state convention and adopt Party rules, platforms and resolutions. For instance, I was talking to someone from Senator Feingold’s office today about him coming to Texas and they were telling me that the State of Massachusetts has not had a convention in either 8 or 18 years—I’d have to find my notes to remember which one—but we have a great convention here, and it appears that we are on track to have the largest state convention in 2006. Our convention last year was roughly 10,000 in attendance. Only one other state contends to have that many people and they have 8,000. So, we’re gearing up for that and we’re going to make it a success story because we’re going to have John Edwards, Wes Clark (who have already committed), Senator Hillary Clinton is thinking about it, another invitation has gone out to Bill Clinton so it would be interesting to get two Clintons there at once.

DCM: So basically, the Party’s responsibility is for primary races and the State Convention?

Soechting: Well, you know, your responsibilities are as much as you’ll let them be. We have undertaken candidate recruitment, candidate training schools, grassroots training, hiring a political director and field organizers, working with the Democratic National Committee to see that proper organization goes on around the state so, yeah, our statutory duties are few. Our actual responsibilities are many. You can be as lazy in this job as you want to be and thankfully, we have a staff that is neither lazy by nature nor content to be that way. We have a very hardworking and good staff.

DCM: Tell me more about the staff. What kind of positions do you guys have?

Soechting: Well, currently, Political Director, Executive Director, which I call the Chief of Staff, which it all means the same, but that is the person who is responsible for administering the day to day operations of the Party. Tell me, when do you think this interview is going to go online?

DCM: Oh, I want to get it up as soon as possible.
Soechting: Well, the reason I say this is that we are going to announce a change in the next two or three days so why don’t we let it be that you get the first. The new ED is going to Ruben Hernandez. He comes to us from a great background with Congressman Frost and SEIU, which is a labor union. It’s going to be a big change and it’s going to be a great opportunity for this Party to move forward. Under Mike Lavigne, the current ED, we’ve already moved as far as our relations with the State House goes to a point where it is just truly awesome to see the relationships there. Mike has done a great job interacting with the press and so I think people have a very positive perception of the Texas Democratic Party. And we had some rebuilding to do when I was first elected. It was the year that the State Reps had gone to Ardmore and for whatever reasons; I cannot imagine how everyone would not understand how good a thing that was. Some people did not appreciate that so I think we’ve done a great job showing the people in the state of Texas that was not only a smart move, it was a courageous move. So, then you have the Political Director, who essentially works with the SDEC, the County Chairs—everywhere from the Precinct Chairs to the State Chair and there are a lot of people in between there. Then you have the field organizers who work under the direction of the Political Director and right now, it is small, but that staff will be increasing with our DNC hires in the next several weeks. Of course, there is no idea yet who those hires are going to be. We are actively soliciting resumes from around the state so we should be hoping to start evaluating those hires pretty soon. Our greatest emphasis must be paid to the Hispanic Community because it is the one community that has had the least attention paid to it and so I’ll be talking to a special committee that I’ll put together just for that purpose—to see what it is we need, where it is we need it, and then we’ll sit down and figure out who it is that will be working on that.

DCM: Can you speak more about the new DNC hires? What role will they have in the State Party?

Soechting: Well, they will be field organizers, and that means that they will be working in the field organizing grassroots efforts, campaigns, etc. They are going to be invaluable at working in areas that have not seen on-the-ground Democratic operatives in a while.

DCM: And can you tell me where they will be active? What areas will they be in?

Soechting: You can expect that you are going to see special attention paid to any Hispanic area with great attention being paid to the valley, a lot of attention being paid to inner-city El Paso, everywhere from El Paso to Houston. And, of course, we have large interest in Dallas County as well and even in rural areas in places like Walker County we have pockets of Hispanics, so we’re going to be working where we need to work. But you can expect the greatest attention to be paid along the river from El Paso to Brownsville. Or Boca Chica. You know where Boca Chica is, don’t you?

DCM: I have no idea.

Soechting: It’s on the very, very tip right as it flows into the Gulf of Mexico.

DCM: Are there any other offices in the Texas State Party that you’d like to talk about?

Soechting: Yeah. We have my Executive Assistant, which is April Larsh, who probably does as much as anyone in this Party trying to make sure that we all go in the right direction at the right time for the right reasons. She’s been an invaluable hire. She just learned she’s expecting a baby and so we’re going to try to figure out how to work that in—there should be one more Democrat on the ground here soon. Then we have Shelley Smith and Evan Hicks who work finance for the Party who have more work than they can possibly say grace over, but we hope to have a new fundraising component coming online shortly and that will do a lot toward making their life unbearable because it’ll be more work than they already have (and I’m laughing when I say that, but it’s good for the Party when they are really, really busy!)

DCM: Some folks have criticized the State Party over the current level of funding. Can you speak to that at all?

Soechting: You know, I think it’s natural to criticize, especially when you don’t have a real good grasp for what’s going on, but the dynamics of funding have changed since McCain/Feingold and for those that don’t understand that and don’t see those change that would be a natural criticism. But, if you understand the realities of how campaign finance laws have changed, you understand that we are probably in better shape than we are in right now. But, no, funding is slow, absolutely. But a lot of the people that do some of the criticizing would be helpful if they would do some of the work to help resolve that problem. They can donate, come in and volunteer, etc. It’s easy to criticize and it’s easy to be frustrated, but for these folks, if they would come down and see how we make-do on the resources that we have, I think most people would be very impressed to see that we do as well as we do. The thing is, when I assumed the Chairmanship, this was a Party that had not had much success at winning races. That was not because of any current Chair, but it was because of the current state of politics in Texas. I think we’ve done a good job driving the information to show that the change was not good for people and people are starting to understand it. I mean, if you can’t find a farmer in El Campo hardly that claims he voted for Rick Perry, you can’t find a guy that works in the shops in the Houston that claims he’s a Republican anymore. You can’t find people standing in gas lines that say that they’re happy with George Bush and the price of gas, so I think there’s a lot of things that are going to start turning our way that just took a while for people to be screwed long enough. I’ll be the first to admit that George Bush will smile at you and screw you quicker than anyone who has probably held a public office anywhere, but he does it very effectively. Rick Perry made people think he cared about kids and education and school teachers. I sure like Lon Burnham. I sure like when he sent a strong message by refusing to cote for Tom Craddick, and I think all of those others that joined him this time sent a strong message and I hope that next time it’s an even stronger message.

DCM: Speaking of that, we just finished up our second special session of the summer, and there wasn’t anything accomplished as far as education and finance goes…

Soechting: There was nothing special as it relates to education in this special session. The telecom industry did well, which maybe they needed that relief, but kids needed to have some answers to the education plan in Texas.

DCM: Yeah, I’ve had some of our readers criticize the State Democrats as being obstructionists and not getting anything accomplished and not being willing to accomplish anything on school finances. Do you have anything to say to those folks?

Soechting: Sure, tell them they’re Republicans and it’s good to see that they’re reading a good Democratic blog because maybe they’ll figure out sooner or later that the Democrats are looking out for them. I don’t think any Democrat would say that.

DCM: Can you talk to us about the Hochberg amendment?

Soechting: Well, yes. What do you want to talk about on it?

DCM: Well, you know, basically…

Soechting: Well, what Scott called for was level of funding that would help bring Texas more into step with the rest of the nation. Yes, it was going to take some big commitment out of legislators to raise taxes in this state, but what Scott was, I think saying at first is, “Let’s see what our level of commitment is to education.” And then, of course, once you show that you have the level of commitment, you can sit down and figure a way to pay for it. Is it going to cost some? Yeah, but you know what? The way that Tom Craddick and Rick Perry had this education bill set up…The taxes for the rich in this state went down and the taxes on the poorest people went up and that’s not right.

DCM: Well, school is starting for me in a couple of days here at the University of Texas and fortunately for me, my tuition is taken care of, but it’s awfully expensive these days. Do you know how much it is?

Soechting: I was shocked to learn today when talking to one of our employees at the Party.

DCM: Why was that?

Soechting: The cost of tuition is outrageous. It’s criminal. It’s unbelievable that anyone in the legislature or in the public universities would have let something come to this point. I’m of course one of those liberals who thinks a public education ought to be free to whomever wants it and especially if they can’t afford it, but when I learned when talking to my staffer that his was going to be $ 3,800.00. .

Soechting: There is going to have to be a commitment from the legislature that they are going to take back the reigns of this tuition deregulation and get it back to where people can afford it. Period. Giving it to public education and telling them that they can charge whatever they think is fair…that was just an avocation of its role. They just flat said, “We don’t want to deal with this—you handle it.”