By Emilio D. Santos
Democrats or Republicans hold virtually all elective offices. As a result, they benefit from hundreds of millions of dollars of special-interest money and hundreds of millions of dollars of public funds. These two parties have held a monopoly on all elective office power for more than 100 years.
These two parties have been using their power to disenfranchise possible competition. They have rigged campaign finance laws and even election districts to favor incumbents.
Conditions for the population in the Rio Grande Valley are worse under one-party monopoly. The Valley — the last real strong Democratic bastion anywhere in the country — has been identified with Third World poverty conditions.
Every two years, candidates seeking re-election state similar concerns with sentences like: "The Rio Grande Valley has a high unemployment rate and its labor force is unskilled, making it difficult for the region to attract major businesses to the area."
The conditions are still the same as those cited by former State Comptroller John Sharp report, in an 1998 report on the 43 Texas Counties that border Mexico. It offered information about border conditions that were already well-known, as the poorest and least educated region in the nation.
But to attract new business to the Valley requires more than campaign rhetoric. Last October, the Texas Association of Business and Chambers of Commerce put out a legislative scorecard that portrayed all border lawmakers as anti-business. The TABCC ranked lawmakers from 0 to 100. The average score was 66 in the House and 62 in the Senate. All of the Valley state representatives scored below 43.
Democrats have run city councils and county offices in general in the Valley. Federal and state legislative representation likewise is run by Democrats in both Hidalgo and Cameron counties.
Is it the time to break away from failed Democratic leadership? Is the Republican Party the only realistic option for creating an atmosphere to promote Valley economic expansion and to ensure fair laws beyond the influence of wealthy interest groups? Not any more.
The Hidalgo County Republican Party is no longer the Lincoln party. The leadership abandoned traditional Republican leadership in the areas of human rights and equal right for all. There is no place in the county party for Mexican-Americans.
The Hidalgo County Republican leadership failed to have any Republican campaign against 25 Democratic nominees in November. Apparently, the county leadership only cares abut non-partisan city elections, but completely ignores the county issues.
For example, when Hidalgo County Board of Judges "technically" fired County Auditor Manuel Cavazos, CPA, and substituted him with an unlicensed individual. The auditor was fired because he and his staff uncovered several instances of questionable spending practices.
Two internal audits of the Urban County Program uncovered several instances of misuse of funds and conflicts of interest. But the Hidalgo County Republican leadership kept an accomplice silent when the auditor had been substituted by one friendly to the county judge administration.
But what to do without an effective opposition? There have been third parties in American politics when major parties failed to address public concerns. Republicans emerged in 1856 from the Whigs, since Whigs ignored slavery.
In 1969, Jose Angel Gutierrez of Crystal City founded the Raza Unida Party. That year, Raza Unida candidates won Zavala County races for the offices of county judge, clerk and treasurer, and captured two commissioner court offices. Raza Unida’s gubernatorial candidate, Ramsey Muñiz, received 6.2 percent of the votes in 1972.
In the 1998 general election, Anthony Garcia, the Libertarian candidate for lieutenant governor, received 65,150 votes, only 1.75 percent of the votes, but was a very significant amount for an unknown candidate with an unfounded campaign.
Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura, a former professional wrestler, was elected in 1998, defeating Democratic and Republican candidates.
Enough for the
same old song; enough for the same rhetoric. If Minnesotans did so, why not the
Valley? It is time to awake and open our minds to search for other options, to
be able to bring to our children prosperity like other Texas regions.
© 2002 Valley multimedia, Corp.- Emilio D.
Santos, McAllen, TX