| With Austin Rep. Donna Howard winning her recount by 12 votes, Democrats thought they had locked in their important 51st vote in the Texas House, denying the GOP a 100 vote supermajority in the lower chamber. A 2/3rds majority is largely symbolic as there are few provisions that require a 2/3rds vote in the House- tapping the Rainy Day Fund, constitutional amendments, and overriding a gubernatorial veto or, in extreme cases, breaking quorum.
On Election Night, I remarked that Democrats were lucky that Democratic Representative Allan Ritter did not have a Republican opponent as he would have likely lost like the rest of his East Texas Anglo Democratic colleagues. I even remarked privately to folks in Austin that because of the slim margin we would be wise to keep an eye out for GOP pressure to garner a party switch from the Democratic caucus.
It appears that may be happening, but from an unlikely source.
Today, Rep. Aaron Pena of Hidalgo County, which still has no Republican officeholders, announced that he will issue a statement in the coming days to address swirling speculation that he may switch parties. From the Rio Grande Guardian...
"I am out of state with my wife on a mini-vacation. With so many calls coming in, I cannot simply ignore the speculation any more. As a result of the devastation in the general election, where Texas Democrats lost their conservative and much of the moderate wing of their party, I responded to questions posed by the Rio Grande Guardian as to what the future holds for the party.
"That article caused a lot of speculation and the Texas Tribune, in a podcast, and Texas Monthly's Paul Burka, in a blog, asked questions about my future. Although Paul took his post down soon afterwards, it opened up the floodgates and I have received over 50 calls, from Democrats and Republicans alike.
"Many of the Democrats are still thinking the party can be reformed and that perhaps, in a decade, we can be competitive again.
"Many of the calls from Republicans, including lawmakers, were that our community can still have a seat at the table now. Why wait a decade when you can have opportunities now?
"And so, after the large number of calls today and the growing speculation, I can say I am taking the matter under consideration and I will issue a public statement in the coming days, one way or the other. I am who I am and my intention is to represent my community and to give them the best possible advantage under the current environment."
Peña added that when he gets back home he will talk to family, close friends and community leaders before issuing his public statement.
While Pena isn't the only Democrat to be disappointed with the Texas Democratic Party, this is a poor way of resolving those concerns if he's seriously considering becoming a Republican.
- First, aligning yourself with the Republicans for the sake of "the best interests of your district" aka "access" is something we've heard before- from the sellout Craddick Democrats. I don't have the list handy, but I think that most of them have been now been defeated in primaries, generals, or retired. Given that Rep. Pena is already a pledge to Speaker Strauss, switching parties doesn't change the speaker math unless he's planning to throw his support behind Rep. Paxton which would be a whole other level of bizarre. Maybe Strauss could claim that he enabled the GOP 100 vote supermajority but that seems largely irrelevant from the real dynamics in the current anti-Strauss campaign. Does Strauss have any spare Chairmanships to hand out to Pena if he switches? He's already chair of the Select Committee on Emergency Preparedness and I doubt that the GOP caucus would stand for Strauss elevating him from Vice Chair to Chair of Elections when Voter ID is on the top of the agenda. Pena already has seats on the Redistricting and Ways & Means Committees so I'm puzzled by how much more he can extract by switching parties.
- Second, the 100 vote supermajority is a lot like when Democrats got their "60th vote in the Senate" with Al Franken. We know that because of the ideology of those 60 Senators, which included 2 Independents, that Democrats never really had an effective 60 vote coalition. The same thing is true of the Texas GOP where the ideological spectrum of 100 will make it hard to wrangle party-line votes on a number of issues.
Plus, there is no filibuster in the Texas House; the few things which 100 votes are needed for (tapping the Rainy Day Fund, constitutional amendments, and overriding a gubernatorial veto) will probably end up being cross-party votes unless Pena is suddenly going to vote for hard right constitutional amendments. It's just as likely there are still a couple of votes in the Democratic caucus that will replace some GOP moderate votes on 100-vote type of issues. Having 100 votes for veto overrides is kind of pointless so long as we still have a Republican Governor. Tapping the Rainey Day Fund is something that Democrats want, not Republicans (according to the Tea Party and GOP budget writing leadership) 100 votes is equally meaningless there. The ability to break quorum might be the biggest, but it was hard to get 51 members to do that when Democrats had nearly a dozen more seats available as a buffer- with 51 seats there no margin for error and that includes Democratic members that did not participate in the quorum busting during the redistricting debate in 2003.
- Third, we have the electoral issue. Rep. Chuck Hopson switched parties because he was in the most Republican district held by a Democrat in the Texas House. He switched out of self preservation and was successful in winning a GOP primary and general. Rep. Pena is from Hidalgo County which has no other elected Republicans. Switching might earn him some love from a GOP drawn redistricting and as such he'd have to count on somehow getting a GOP leaning district drawn in Hidalgo County. If that somehow happens, it will be the 'most Anglo' district you can draw in Hidalgo which would open up Pena to primary challengers that will never see him as conservative enough. Hopson was already conservative when he switched and didn't have to move much ideologically in his voting. Pena would have to really change his voting behavior to accomodate GOP primary voters, however few of them there are in Hidalgo. And if he does get out of the primary, he'll have to face a 2012 general election electorate in Hidalgo County.
I guess the silver lining in a Pena party switch would be that he'd finally give Democrats a contested general election race in Hidalgo County in 2012- a presidential year where KBH's US Senate seat will be up.
Since giving the GOP a 100 vote supermajority doesn't actually have that many practical effects on the 2011 legislative session, maybe we should let Pena go. The irony would be exquisit if Pena's party switch led to the very rebuilding the Democratic Party, particularly in South Texas, that is being given as the rationale for him becoming a Republican.
Update: Rick Perry vs The World ran the numbers. Basically, there is no way Pena wins as a Republican. |
