(I wanted to make sure people had a chance to see this excellent interview with the next Governor of Texas, I mean, State Senator Van de Putte. - promoted by Karl-Thomas Musselman)
Ed. Note: The first half of the interview is policy-based, because I think you can learn more about an elected official from how they approach policy than anything else. However, I also know what most readers want. To read the political side of the interview -- and her answers to the 2010 statewide questions -- go to the second half of the interview immediately by clicking here.
Senator Van de Putte's record on progressive issues lends credence to the attention she has received. A former President of the National Conference of State Legislators, Senator Van de Putte received her most recent bit of national attention as Co-Chair of the Democratic National Committee Convention in Colorado last summer. A little over a year ago, she gave the Spanish State of the Union response. She is the current and long-standing leader of the Texas Senate Democratic Caucus, a group that was thrust into the national spotlight in 2003 when she helped lead her colleagues to New Mexico for a month to help fight Tom Delay's unconstitutional mid-decade redistricting map.
Needless to say, Senator Leticia Van de Putte has been a hot topic among Texas Democrats over the past few weeks. I had a chance to interview Senator Van de Putte last Friday about the current legislative session, as well as what the political future may hold for her and the Democratic Party. Read the full transcript below.
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Phillip Martin: It seems you've been quite busy lately. How has the last week been in the spotlight?
Senator Van de Putte: We had an incredible week in the State Senate. Things seem to be moving at a very quick pace, particularly at this time in the Legislature. Right now we want to make sure that all of the stimulus funding that is coming to our state and that will flow through the state budget gets utilized for its purposes. We're particularly pleased that we've been able to raise the importance of the unemployment insurance issue, so we can make sure that $540 million goes to workers that are already affected by the downturn of the economy.
I've read that Governor Perry changed the rules surrounding the unemployment fund, right?
Governor Perry got convinced by some of his business supporters that they needed to give relief to businesses, so they turned back the rate by which businesses pay into the unemployment fund. At the time, the unemployment insurance fund looked pretty solid. It was the wrong move, because as the downturn occurred nationally, Texas wasn't immune. Now, we find ourselves hundreds of millions of dollars short because Governor Perry, basically, decided to give it back.
However, the stimulus money that has been passed by the current administration would allow for us to draw down to the state an additional $540 million for workers who have lost their jobs. We had been hearing this rhetoric from Tom Pauken -- the former Chair of the Republican Party of Texas who is now Chair of the Texas Workforce Commission -- that he and Governor Perry didn't want to accept this money. They were saying that there were strings attached and this was not something we needed to burden Texas employers with.
Nothing could be further from the truth. What about the people who have already lost their jobs? We are very happy that on record this week Senator Kirk Watson -- who sits on the Senate Nominations Committee -- got Tom Pauken to publicly recognize the fact that, yes, we absolutely need these dollars and we need to change the law in the state of Texas to be able to get those stimulus dollars to the state of Texas.
With the change in law, you're referring -- I'd presume -- to the legislation you've filed?
Yes. And what's interesting is that Senator Lucio and I have been filing these bills year after year, because the policies are inherently unfair to workers. There's a trio of bills that we're looking at, and we've asked Governor Perry to put them on the special call for the Session. As soon as we pass these bills, we're eligible for the stimulus money.
There are a lot of folks that will lose their jobs this summer, unfortunately, and on into the fall. We haven't gotten to the worst of this economy. But we know there is money to start doing something now, and that's what the legislation is trying to do.
I know that we've seen some figures about full-time workers that have lost their jobs, but one of the growing stories across the country is the large number of part-time workers that are losing their jobs. Can you give me a sense of how many part-time workers have lost their jobs, or if there has been a growing rate in the number of reduced hours worked here in Texas by part-time, or even full-time, workers?
Well, Texas is one of the few states that does not allow part-time workers to collect unemployment insurance, so we don't have solid data on that. The bill I have filed would allow part-time workers to file unemployment insurance claims and, if they qualify, draw down some of those funds. While we don't know the statistics, though, we do know that in the down turned economy, the first to be told that they don't need to come to work the next day are part-time workers.
There are three classes of people that are mainly part-time workers. First, our young students who are either in high school or in college, but particularly college-age students. The second are working women with young children -- young moms that will work part-time, juggling family and home. The third are our senior citizens, who may be on a fixed income but still need that extra cash coming into their monthly pockets.
When we don't offer unemployment benefits to part-time workers, the ones who are affected our students, seniors, and working moms. These are folks who lost their jobs -- through no fault of their own -- but because of the downturn of the national economy and the state economy, these groups are having to go to food banks, they're going to have to ask their sisters to pay for the utilities...They're hurting, and we can only surmise that it's because they've lost the only job they have, even if it's a part-time job.
Ed. note: There is much, much more with Senator Van de Putte below the fold -- including her response to whether or not she'd run for Governor, what kind of infrastructure needs to be in place for a Democrat to win statewide, and her reaction to last week's Perry vs. Hutchison poll numbers. Click "There's More" to continue reading...
(Here's an excellent diary from one of our regular readers -- and a Bastrop precinct chair. I'll also let everyone know, in case you haven't, that you can join the Facebook group "Draft Leticia Van de Putte for Governor" if you want to show your support. - promoted by Phillip Martin)
(Fair disclosure: I am a partisan hack, precinct chair, yellowdog and all-around liberal tool from Bastrop County...)
Que es esto? Phillip's recent post floating Sen. Leticia Van de Putte as a gubernatorial possibility made me pause in uffish thought for awhile today. While I'd pondered her as a statewide before, it never really occurred to me to put her at the top of the list, but the post made me dig a little deeper and do some cipherin' (as my grandfather used to say).
My first thought was, damn that's a great media piece in the SA Current to start things off. Somebody in her camp has their act together - all the way down to the photos, which make her look tall and commanding and serious (as opposed to short and matronly), without sacrificing her femininity. I like where this is going, PR-wise, if nothing else.
Then I thought some more, going down my mental list of vital candidate criteria and what a Democrat needs to knock off the jackals who currently control the machinery of our state gubmint...
I couldn't come up with a single weakness in her profile. Unless of course it's just not mathematically possible to elect a Latina as Texas Governor yet. My cursory reading of the numbers suggest that it's not out of the realm of possibility, given a combination of circumstances next year, but perhaps someone else can work over the numbers more closely and see what they yield. For the moment, I'm in love with the idea of this woman leading our cabal into the breach in 2010...and here's a few reasons why - (after the jump, if there is one around here...)
Democrat State Senator Leticia Van de Putte had an amazing feature in this week's San Antonio Current. The piece highlights her focus on an agenda this session that is more aggressive -- "Julian's Agenda" -- and how well she works in a pragmatic fashion to deliver real change to Texas families.
You should really read the whole piece. If you only have limited time now, read the part highlighted below. But come back later and read the whole piece before the day ends.
Van de Putte, 54, seems to sense that this is her political moment, and she’s capitalizing on it with a flurry of legislative proposals — including tax exemptions for the sale and installation of solar panels — demonstrating a new-found urgency on environmental issues. She explains her legislative aggressiveness with a story about a “transforming moment” during a September 2007 visit with her then 3-and-a-half-month-old grandson, Julian, to the grave of her beloved grandfather.
“It was a beautiful day, early in the morning, and I had [Julian] in the carrier,” she says. “I noticed the baby was hungry, so I got the bottle and I was feeding him. A breeze comes through and then it hits me: ‘I am at my grandparents’ grave and I am holding my grandson.’ And it clicked. I had this huge feeling of responsibility and awe and total fear that in 20 years I may not be around.
“I know I’m not going to be around for the majority of this child’s life, even if I lead a very healthy life. My fear is that in 20 years he’ll say, ‘You were part of it. Why didn’t you invest, why didn’t you protect the environment?’ I just balled. I stayed there about an hour trying to compose myself, and saying, ‘Oh, my God!’”
Van de Putte says that shortly after her graveside epiphany, she began meeting with members of her staff, telling them that she hadn’t been vocal enough in pushing for change. She told them she needed “rock stars” who could work tirelessly and create legislative miracles. In response, Van de Putte’s staff members began calling her 2009 legislative proposals “the Julian Agenda.”
Six state legislators joined environmental advocates Monday morning to forecast a sunny session for solar power. Public Citizen, Environment Texas and the Lone Star Chapter of the Sierra Club hosted a statewide round of press conferences this week to roll out our solar report, Texas Solar Roadmap -- which can be downloaded at www.cleanenergyfortexas.org.
Texas Solar Roadmap highlights how a robust solar program would help put Texans back to work, reduce peak energy prices, curb climate change, improve air quality, and position the state as a world leader for solar production. The full report is a pretty good read, but if you're short on time I suggest the condensed version, Wildcatting the Sun.
Senators Troy Fraser (R-Abilene), Leticia Van de Putte (D-San Antonio), Kirk Watson (D-Austin), Rodney Ellis (D-Houston), and Representatives Mark Strama (D-Austin) and Rafael Anchia (D-Dallas) all appeared to champion the solar bills they have introduced thus far.
Rafael Anchia's HB 278 and Florence Eliot Shapiro's SB 427 would require the state's electric utilities to support the development of 2000 megawatts of solar and other on-site renewable technologies by offering direct incentives to consumers and businesses.
This is right in line with Public Citizen's distributed solar goal, outlined in both Wildcatting the Sun and Texas Solar Roadmap. According to our report , such a standard could lead to installations on as many as 500,000 roofs in Texas by 2020 at a cost of about 98 cents per month per Texan (Polls have shown that 81% of Texas voters are willing to pay up to a dollar a month to encourage solar power. What about you?). This investment would create an estimated 22,000 jobs and reduce emissions of carbon dioxide emissions by 29 million tons, the equivalent of taking 4.3 million cars off the road for a year.
Anchia stressed that this should be Texas' solar session because it would answer two of our major challenges: air quality, and global warming. Senator Fraser was the first legislator to speak, proclaiming that this would be Texas' solar session. Chairman of the Business and Commerce Committee, Fraser is well positioned to be an effective solar champion...
We missed the press release, but the Austin American Statesman is reporting Senator Leticia Van de Putte was re-elected to chair the Senate Democratic Caucus.
The Senate Democratic Caucus today re-elected Sen. Leticia Van de Putte, D-San Antonio, as chair and Sen. Royce West, D-Dallas, as vice-chair.
This will be Van de Putte's fifth term representing San Antonio in the Senate. Some will recognize from a her work nationally as the co-chair of the 2008 Democratic National Convention.
Senators Van de Putte, West and the other Democrats will have one new member this session-- Wendy Davis. With Davis, Democrats now have 12 seats in the Senate and greater unity to fight bad legislation like Voter ID.
Congratulations to Senator Van de Putte and West on there leadership posts.
I have to admire the fighting spirit from San Antonio State Senator Leticia Van de Putte in this article. She was the first politician I met when my dad and I traveled from Fredericksburg to San Antonio to attend Tony Sanchez's gubernatorial announcement tour. I've always liked her and it wouldn't be hard for me to get behind her. I fully expected her to run for higher office at some point- the only question being for when and for what.
This is in reference to an article on the fact that with retirements and Obama appointments, Hispanics will be down to just one U.S. Senator- Bob Menedez who is the incoming DSCC chairman to replace Chuck Schumer (who gave Texas the shaft after us rabble rousers disrupted his plans to christen Mikal Watts as the chosen one).
Noriega said the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) gave him only $39,900.
The Democratic committee did spend heavily to support two Hispanics in recent years: Menendez got more than $8 million in 2006 and Salazar got about $3 million in 2004, records show.
In a letter last week to Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., who headed the DSCC the past two years, Texas state Sens. Mario Gallegos and Leticia Van de Putte, accused the committee of writing off the Texas race because Noriega is "not wealthy or white."
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Menendez said he'd like to recruit a diverse crop of Senate candidates for the 2010 elections. He added, however, "My first and foremost priority is to make sure I have candidates who can win the seats statewide." That means candidates who have a high profile and "the ability to raise the resources," Menendez said.
Noriega and Van de Putte say that favors wealthy or well-connected candidates - such as Bill White, an independently wealthy Democratic mayor of Houston, who just announced his intention to seek a Senate seat in Texas. Hispanics make up 35.5% of the state's population.
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Van de Putte said she's thinking about running for a U.S. Senate seat in Texas, and that party leaders who argue she doesn't have enough financial backing won't faze her. Hers is a confidence inspired by the 2008 election.
Said Van de Putte, "The days of women and minorities asking permission are gone."
Damn right sister. And don't undersell yourself in your appeal or ability to raise money. Word is that you're potential candidacy has the John Sharp team wigging out right now. I can understand why.
Assuming there is a 2009 electoral free-for-all, the Democratic candidates are essentially competing for their 45%-50% slice of the pie. With two moderate white dudes, blacks and latinos are all a toss up, with White keeping his regional Houston base and Sharp keeping his East Texas and rural base (which isn't as good). If Van de Putte runs, she takes the Valley, El Paso, and Bexar into her camp and probably becomes the favorite in Austin with Sharp running 3rd. That leaves the DFW market as the last true toss-up area forcing Sharps natural base to be the smallest of the 3 in comparison. And being a Hispanic woman is worth a lot of votes even without a $1 million self investment if you've paid attention to any recent elections in Texas.
This very rough math could be that much stronger for Van de Putte if there ends up being a 2010 election with an actual primary if it gives her more time to raise money. Of course, the downside is that in a free-for-all election she only needs to be the top Democratic vote getter to become the nominee assuming she ends up in a runoff with a Republican and not another one of the Democrats. In a primary she'd need 50% to avoid a runoff where she might have a rougher time.
Of course, I can also dream of a world where Bill White changes course and runs for Governor like I wish he would, and Van de Putte runs for Senate with Sharp, they both end up in a runoff, and she wins to become the first Latina in the Senate...
State Sen. Leticia Van de Putte (D-San Antonio), who saw her star rise this past year with a prominent role at the Democratic National Convention, says she has been approached about running for the U.S. Senate and has not ruled out the possibility of running.
Van de Putte sounds a bit more interested -- possibly -- in Republican U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison's job. Hutchison's exploration of a race for governor in 2010 already has more than a few people eyeing Senate race.
"I am just so very honored and extremely flattered that I've had a number of folks be very supportive and talk about my skill set and the fact this country has shown they'd like to go in a new direction," Van de Putte said. "An Hispanic female may not be the same ol', same ol' in the U.S. Senate."
Van de Putte said she's not ruling out such a race, but she emphasized, "You're not going to find me doing an exploratory committee in the next day or two. I'm going to take the holiday and look at the situation. I don't anticipate me doing anything but really focusing on the legislative session in the next several months."
It seems, however, that Obama's election has been an inspiration.
"The days of the party hacks and the party powers-that-be deciding who's going to run and who's not going to run is over," said Van de Putte.
She said a federal race with its contribution limits is more attractive to "someone like me" than a state race in which people can raise unlimited contributions and thus, she said, are benefited by being a member of or at least "comfortable with" the "millionaires' club."
A federal race is "a great equalizer," she said. "You don't need to be a member of the political elite."
Asked whether Democrats John Sharp or Houston Mayor Bill White fall into the old-school category, she said, "I would say, just not a fresh face. ... The U.S. Senate is full of people who look just like that.
While she maintains that she "love[s] being in the Texas Legislature and that's kind of where I'd like to be," it is exciting to see Van de Putte at least considering a statewide race.
In a Van de Putte - White - Sharp matchup, which Democat would you favor?
State Sen. Leticia Van de Putte, who served as a convention co-chair earlier this week, said exactly what needed to be said when asked about John McCain's choice for vice president, Sarah Palin.
"All I can say is they must be really, really worried about Barack Obama’s appeal. A lot of the women were in favor of Hillary Clinton because of her stance on issues that are important to women. I’m very proud to be an elected official who’s a woman, but just having ovaries doesn’t qualify you for anything."
State Sen. Leticia Van de Putte (D-San Antonio) will chair the Democratic National Convention on Wednesday night, the Houston Chronicle reports.
Van de Putte, who was named a convention co-chair by Gov. Howard Dean more than a year ago, will chair quite an eventful night.
Wednesday night will feature former President Bill Clinton, the yet to be named vice-presidential nominee, and, as Peggy Sikac reports, the state-by-state roll call will likely happen that night.
Van de Putte's national profile began to rise in 2006, when she became the first Texan and the first Hispanic to serve as President of the National Conference of State Legislatures.
During the State Democratic Convention in June, one Travis County Obama delegate told me he thought Van de Putte would be Governor someday.
Whether Van de Putte decides to run for statewide office or not, it is clear that after this national recognition and her role as five-year chair of the Texas Senate Democratic Caucus, Van de Putte is a big asset to the party.
Even as polls show Barack Obama doing very well among Hispanic voters, state Sen. Leticia Van de Putte (D-San Antonio) is "still concerned about the enthusiasm level [for Obama] in her predominantly Hispanic district," the San Antonio Express-News reported.
Have those wounds, particularly the hurt feelings of older Latinas who saw their own struggle in Clinton's historic candidacy, had enough time to heal? Does it make a difference now that the buzz out of Washington, D.C., is Clinton almost assuredly won't be Obama's running mate?
“If you drive through my district, those Hillary signs aren't coming down yet,” said Van de Putte on Friday. “My hope is through the convention and shortly thereafter to make them (Hillary supporters) feel more comfortable.”
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It is a tougher problem for Obama as his race against Republican John McCain is tightening in some national polls. Older Latinos, particularly those of Mexican-American descent in the Southwest, tend to be solid Democratic voters, so any lack of zeal for Obama within any sector of the community could be problematic for his candidacy.
“I really believe they're going to vote for Senator Obama,” Van de Putte reasoned, “but I want them to have the level of engagement and excitement they would have had for a Hillary Clinton ticket.
“I think it will take a while,” she said.
Local political consultant JoAnn Ramon has built a career on cajoling area Democrats to vote straight-ticket in partisan elections. And she sees the same hurdles for Obama among “more experienced” Latinas in her South Side stomping grounds.
“The Latinas have been very adamant,” Ramon said. “If (Obama) doesn't take Hillary, they're going to skip that race on the ballot.”
The 64-year-old Ramon conceded that even a party loyalist like herself needed “a grieving period” to get past the end of Hillary's presidential candidacy.
“It's hard,” she said.
What Obama needs, Van de Putte and Ramon agreed, is for Clinton to vouch for him in person in heavily Hispanic areas. And it must go beyond the featured role that Clinton will be given at the national convention.
“You've got to believe it to sell it,” Ramon said. “Hillary is really going to have to say something, and she's really going to have to campaign for him.”
Van de Putte said it helps, but it's not enough, to simply acknowledge that Obama emphasizes the same priorities as the larger Hispanic community — education, health care and the economy.
To hear it from Hillary's lips, on the stump, could make all the difference in the world ...
For various reasons, it seems unlikely that Hillary Clinton will be the vice-presidential nominee. I hope she is still well utilized by the Obama campaign to do outreach to groups that overwhelmingly supported her during the primaries.
Democrats will have to work hard to hold on to the voters that JoAnn Ramon speaks of: Hispanic women who plan to skip the presidential race if Clinton is not on the ticket. South Texas Chisme wrote yesterday that he will not be voting in the presidential election, either.
While this is not as bad as the seemingly irrational Clinton supporters who have defected to McCain, it is important to have complete Democratic unity for victory in November.
Also, Hillary Clinton will be campaigning for Obama in Nevada and Miami, FL later this month in a continued effort to reach out to Hispanic voters on behalf of Obama.
