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If you venture too far from South Texas or the mired halls of Texas’ state capitol politics you may not not run into too many people who’ve heard of Carlos Truan. But inside his home base the former state senator’s sometimes tender approach and sometimes hard-hewed politics were well known. Truan died Tuesday in his hometown, Corpus Christi, Texas. He was 76.

I first met Sen. Carlos Truan in the early 1980′s, covering the raucous Texas legislature. From the time of that first meeting to the last time I remember seeing or talking to him, he greeted me, or anyone else he met, with a wide, warm smile. But that smile guarded a toughness that he wielded in defense of his highest ideals.

He made his entrance into politics  in the late 1960′s, a time when schools were segregated in his hometown and the federal government had to intervene; a time of racial tensions and ethnic divides. He was tough, and he used his toughness in defense of the rights of Spanish-speaking school children to receive their education in their native language. In 1969 he authored and worked to pass the Texas Bilingual Education Act.

Throughout his long tenure in the Texas legislature he was known for the volume of legislation that he brought to the floor of the Senate.  He was tireless and energetic and by the time of this retirement was the Dean of the Texas Senate.

He leaves an enormous  legacy, and he will be missed.

[Photo by Texas Senate News]

By Cindy Casares

Texas Representative Aaron Peña (R, but formerly D–Edinburg) is in the hot seat this week after testimony in San Antonio federal court last week proved inconsistent with Peña’s description of his role in the recent redrawing of Texas voter district maps.

The proposed new map for state House districts includes a specially created conservative district for Peña. That district surfaced mere months after he switched political parties, helping give the GOP a supermajority in the Texas House.

Peña stated on the House floor during session in April that he told the redistricting committee, “I will not draw this map because one, I did not want to be involved. And two, that I didn’t want to be involved in pairing or being involved in affecting my neighbors districts.”

But that doesn’t square with what House redistricting committee counsel Ryan Downton testified in a San Antonio federal court last week. Downton said he worked directly with Peña on the district lines after the first draft of the map was released. Specifically, Downton said that Peña told him which neighborhoods were favorable to the lawmaker so that Downton could include them in Peña’s proposed district. This is according to Texas Democratic Party deputy executive director Anthony Gutierrez, who posted the report of court proceedings on Monday on that party’s blog  The Party Insider.

Apparently, it proved awfully difficult to carve a conservative district for Peña out of Democratic-leaning Hidalgo County. Compared with surrounding districts—all Democratic— Peña’s HD 41 is   under populated by about 7,000 people. Downton testified that including more voters would have made the district too Democratic as Hidalgo County is largely populated by Latinos who have never before elected a Republican. This process of putting more voters in neighboring districts is a method of gerrymandering known as “packing” where minorities are packed into surrounding districts to create a non-minority district for interested parties.

A call to Rep. Peña’s office got me this quote from Peña:

“I did not physically draw the map, did I make suggestions to the map drawers, sure just like 149 other members did. I have always been forthright that I communicated with staff and legislators as is my duty as a member of the committee.  These sort of petty personal attacks by hyper-partisans are not constructive.”

The same day Gutierrez released his report, the Department of Justice filed legal briefs announcing that the Texas House and congressional redistricting maps violate the Voting Rights Act of 1965 because they don’t protect the electoral power of the state’s minority populations. This means the case will go to federal court in Washington D.C.

The Voting Rights Act is a landmark piece of legislation that outlawed discriminatory voting practices especially prevalent in the American South. Texas is required by federal law to get pre-clearance on any changes to voting procedures because of its history of disenfranchising minority voters. (More on this and the various court proceedings in my print column in the upcoming October issue of the Observer.)

As of this writing, the San Antonio federal court proceedings have wrapped, but the panel has not issued a report. It’s waiting for the decision to come down from D.C. courts that are allowed to make the final decision on this case. That could take as long as November. Meanwhile, Peña has a very tough reelection fight on his hands, even if his friendly district is upheld.

[Photo By Texas House]

By Dr. Henry Flores, Ph.D.

The reason we can’t get anything done in the Texas state legislature is that there are too many Latinos elected to that “august body.” So sayeth Rebecca Forest, a co-founder of Immigration Reform Coalition of Texas. If you recall, she stood on the steps of the state Capitol and said the reason the government was off track was due to Latino elected representation, “The problem is these Hispanic legislators,” to be quite precise.

Too many Hispanics? ¡Hijole! Just when you think we have arrived somebody lets go with a Freudian slip. I guess that’s better than slipping on a banana peel or something, but still! I mean, what does one have to do to get accepted around here?

The other day another of our “esteemed” (not to be confused with steamed) legislators got angry at a committee witness on the sanctuary city bill because the witness chose to deliver his comments in Spanish.

When the legislator asked the young man if he spoke English the young guy said, fluently, that he did, which then sent the legislator off on his “esteemedness.” The legislator screamed “Well if you can speak English why don’t you?” The young man relied that he had spoken in Spanish because he felt more comfortable in his native language rather than in English. I might note that the witness’ English was better than the interpreter’s.

We have two issues here that are sides of the same coin, first Texas is a majority-minority state; secondly, the largest ethnic group in Texas happens to be Hispanic/Latino. If our “august” legislative chambers were to be truly representative of the state’s population — not just citizens but everyone subject to the legal jurisdiction of the state — then there would be more Latinos in the senate, state house and on the board of education.

But, then, again with more Latinos elected to these legislating chambers we might do something horrible like pass a state income tax, increase spending on education, reform the prison system to reduce recidivism, improve the air and water quality of the state, control the growth of the state which is ruining the environment, and other types of “bad” laws.

One of the most important facts that both of the politicians in Austin seem to overlook is that Latinos keep increasing population-wise every day so that we are now approximately 35% of the entire state population with the vast majority of us voting citizens.

Secondly, as I’ve said before here and in other places, the United States has already become the second largest Spanish speaking nation on the planet Earth. Spanish is more common in everyday life than it was when I was a child — and it was pretty common then. If these two facts continue to be ignored by our “esteemed” legislature, the state will pass into mediocrity in all areas. As it is we already have one of the worst educational, environmental and social-welfare reputations in the entire country. If it weren’t for a few “dirt-poor” states scattered throughout the southeastern part of the United States, Texas would be last among all states in almost every social or economic category available.

Dr. Henry Flores is a professor of Political Science and Dean of the Graduate School at St. Mary’s University, in San Antonio, Texas.

[Photo By roland]