Burnt Orange Report

Austin Enough is Enough Rally

By Byron LaMasters

As I said earlier, I attended the Enough is Enough rally in Austin on Saturday. In my infinite wisdom, I decided to go out with friends in Dallas on Friday night, and ended up only getting a couple of hours of sleep on Friday night. There were 11 buses leaving from Dallas, but I decided to go with Dave, who not only managed to get us there and back in one piece, but provided entertaining company (a special thanks to Dave for driving). So, we left from the Dallas County Democratic Party office around 8 AM and arrived in Austin around 11 AM. We were lucky enough to find a great parking spot, then walked into the capitol to go to the bathroom and cool off a little bit. We walked outside on the south steps where it was a circus. The stage was pretty small and there were several thousand people there, but it was very difficult to count. Media counts have been anywhere from 2000 to 5000. Instead of being all bunched up near the front (as is usually the case with most rallies), lots of people were scattered around under trees and in areas of shade. It was, after all, 100 degrees and humid out. My guess would be about 4000 people, but there's no way to know. There were 40 buses from across the state that brought people from as far away as Lubbock, Texarkana and Brownsville. There was a small Republican presence there. But I mean small. There were about half a dozen protesters at one corner with a couple of signs and flags. An airplane flew around the capitol with a sign attached, reading something like: "Real Heroes -- Don't flee Texas".

The program was emceed by State Rep. Dawnna Dukes (D-Austin), who wore her "Deny DeLay" t-shirt. Here was the official schedule:

• 11:15 Music begins = Ruben "El Gato Negro" Ramos
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• 11:30 Emcee, Representative Dawnna Dukes, starts rally and recognizes Killer D's
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• 11:32 Senate families introduced
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• 11:36 Soloist sings God Bless America
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• 11:42 Ram Chavez, Commander of the Texas GI Forum, speaks and leads the Pledge of Allegiance
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• 11:45 Speakers from Across Texas:
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  • Max Shumake, President of the Sulphur Oversight Society, a group dedicated to the preservation of the Sulphur River Basin
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  • Maureen Jouett, Mayor of Killeen
  
  
• 11:51 Family Members of Texas 11 Speeches:
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  • Joseph Barrientos, son of Senator Gonzalo Barrientos
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  • Olga Gallegos, wife of Senator Mario Gallegos
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  • Ileana Hinojosa, daughter of Senator Juan "Chuy" Hinojosa
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  • Eddie Lucio III, son of Senator Eddie Lucio
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  • Helen Madla, wife of Senator Frank Madla
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  • Lee Shapleigh, wife of Senator Eliot Shapleigh
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  • Nicole Van de Putte, daughter of Senator Leticia Van de Putte
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  • Carol West, wife of Sen. Royce West
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  • Carlos Zaffirini, son of Senator Judith Zaffirini
  
  
• 12:03 Texas 11 members speak by phone
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• 12:10 Rep. Dukes closes rally program
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• 12:15 Closes with Music -- Joe Ely

Amazingly, things stayed pretty much on schedule. It was the desire of all of the organizers to keep all of the speeches as short as possible and to keep the focus on the senators. Dawnna Dukes did a great job as emcee. She has a very powerful voice and held everyone's attention. The crowd was quite vocal. The favorite chant was "Recall Perry! Recall Perry!".

A dozen or two of the 51 Killer D's were there. House Democratic leader Jim Dunnam (D-Waco) got the loudest ovation. He spoke for a minute and said that the Democrats would win the redistricting fight. He pledged to keep fighting the rest of the summer, all fall and all winter if it took that long.

Max Shumake spoke on how the Republican maps gutted rural representation and that his town would likely be represented by a Dallas congressman under a new map. He said that he liked Dallas and all, but a Dallas congressman wouldn't look after the water rights of his community. Instead, a Dallas congressman would fight to build a dam to create more water for Dallas. The rural folks didn't want that, and liked the representation they got from Rep. Max Sandlin (D-Marshall), who looked out for their interests.

Maureen Jouett, the Mayor of Killeen spoke on how she voted in the Republican primary in 2002, and that she was outraged that she was counted as a number being used in the arguements for redistricting. She even whipped out her voter registration card with the "Republican" stamp on it. She was part of the Mayors for Perry and Mayors for Dewhurst groups last fall, but she strongly supported her Democratic congressman Chet Edwards (D-Waco). Why? Because of Fort Hood - the largest employer in the state of Texas, and the largest military base in the world. Chet Edwards fought for Fort Hood and was the reason that it hadn't been downsized. She said that even though her community leaned Republican on the statewide level, they strongly supported Chet Edwards for Congress, because he used his senority on the Armed Services committee to be a champion for Fort Hood. A freshman Republican congressman would be unable to have the influence of Chet Edwards, she said.

All of the family members of the senators praised their mom/dad/husband for their courage and bravery. They were all very proud. The children of Leticia Van de Putte did and excellent job. So did the others, although I don't remember specifically. One of the family members suggested marching towards the governor's mansion after the rally. Several people in the crowd joked about doing a "Texas style recall" (use your imagination), but it was only a joke, so John Ashcroft and all of yall over at the DOJ reading this, there's really no need to start arresting folks over it. No need.

Next, the senators were connected to the speakers and they all spoke, and thanked the crowd for coming. They all spoke for about two minutes. Several of the Hispanic Senators spoke a little bit in Spanish. They pledged to wait as long as it took and urged Governor Perry to stop being a bitch to Tom DeLay and get back to business (although the word "bitch" wasn't used, other names were).

Finally, the rally closed with music. We were all hot and exhausted, even though water was provided at the event. I went to Romeo's for some good Italian food with some friends from Dallas, then we headed back to Dallas. I got there, drove home and slept for five hours, got up at 11 PM, went back to bed at 3 AM, slept until 11 AM then got up this morning. I took another nap this afternoon. Hell of a way to spend a weekend. I'm glad I did it, though. Our senators are holed up in New Mexico away from their jobs and families, so this was the least that we could do to show our support from them. It was hot out, but if old ladies in wheelchairs could take it, then so could we.