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COPYRIGHT 2001 Texas Monthly, Inc.
What did San Antonio Democrat LETICIA VAN DE PUTTE learn in her first go-round as a state senator? That victories are hard-won and compromise is inevitable. That just because she's a legislator she doesn't stop being a wife and a mother. And that Hoochie-Mama shoes aren't the best choice for long days at the Capitol
WHEN THEY'RE NOT AT THE CAPITOL, THE 181 members of the Texas Legislature may be cotton farmers, lawyers, realtors, or like Leticia Van de Putte, pharmacists. But on the second Tuesday in January in odd-numbered years, they enter a political twilight zone in which they abandon the reassuring routine of daily life for an erratic existence with its own unique language, customs, and terrain. When they step through the Capitol's massive oak doors, fawning lobbyists descend upon them, eager and ambitious staff members perch at their elbows, and colleagues offer howdies and presses of the flesh. Imagine more than four months of mind-numbing committee meetings, intense floor debates, and uninspired take-out food; then add to that the intense pressure of the final few weeks, when the decisions you face can make or break your career and your reputation.
Even veteran lawmakers find the experience daunting and draining. For a freshman, it can be overwhelming. This is the story of 46-year-old Van de Putte's first session as a Texas senator. To get a close-up view of the experience, I observed her in her office, at committee meetings, during floor debates, and at luncheons and parties. A Hispanic Democrat from San Antonio, Van de Putte is an indefatigable mother of six. (Her husband, Pete, owns a flag-manufacturing company,) Although she is a freshman, she is no political novice: For the past ten years, she has served in the state House of Representatives. But the Senate, she knows, is a different place. In the House, she was one of 150 members. In the Senate, she is one of 31. The distance between the two chambers is just a few steps across the Capitol rotunda, but in power, prestige, and workload, they are light-years apart.
week one Van de Putte's first job is to get to know the thirty other senators, sixteen of whom are Republicans. By Senate tradition, bills are debated on the floor only by a vote of two thirds of the members present. The "two-thirds rule" means that most of the work of the Senate takes place in private conversations. Senators lobby each other until they win the 21 votes needed to bring a bill to the floor or the 11 needed to kill it. Van de Putte cannot be effective unless she forges personal relationships with...
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