Nick Jimenez

Opposition politics can hurt

Ask Jaime Capelo and Pinky Brauer what they're against and they'll tell you. Both of them made big splashes this week by trying to make virtues out of oppositional stances.
   Usually those against something cast themselves in a heroic pose. They stand on principle. They stand on integrity. But the issues that come along that call for uncompromising opposition are few and far between and usually of monumental proportions. Jim Crow laws and the Vietnam War come to mind.
   But Capelo and Brauer weren't standing against gross injustices or holding back the deluge. They just happened to be in the minority and were on the wrong sides of issues.
   Capelo, a state representative, probably will count the torpedoing of Senate Bill 1802, which would have expanded the Port of Corpus Christi to include San Patricio County, as his greatest accomplishment in this year's legislature.
   The way Capelo tells it, bottling up the bill, authored by State Sen. Carlos Truan, up in committee was letting citizens get a fair shake.
   So eager was Capelo to grab the credit for sinking the bill that he wouldn't let Truan get any blame for fumbling the legislation away. As Steve Ray of the Scripps Howard Austin Bureau noted, Truan may have stepped on sensitive toes by crossing over to the House to lobby for his bill. But Capelo wouldn't let the bill die because of self-inflicted wounds; he wanted that trophy on his wall.
   "I was successful in proving that this bill lacked due process at the local level and that there was a lack of consensus at the local level and that, frankly, it was a bad piece of legislation," Capelo trumpeted.
   The port bill could have been a great step forward. Instead, the defeat was a great step backward, with damage done to regionalism, a much-ignored approach to solving South Texas issues. There was little to take credit for in this soap opera, unless you want to count the bruised feelings among San Patricio County officials who felt they were unfairly cast as the heavies.
   Parting shot
   Being against something rather than being for something is a great Corpus Christi tradition. Brauer, who said she would resign from the Corpus Christi Independent School District Board of Trustees, followed that spirit this week. A tearful Brauer said she would resign from her seat because she, an idealist, a non-politician, could no longer continue. This after more than nine years in office, including one of the most tumultuous periods in the district's history, during which Brauer was chin deep in politics.
   Brauer saw nothing wrong with politics when she was head of the 4-3 majority that ruled the board and that tried to maneuver the ouster of former superintendent Abelardo Saavedra. And a candidate is no novice when she fields the closest thing to a successful political slate around here in years when she, Dot Adkins and Harry Williams ran in concert for the board last year.
   But Brauer, in her departing words, cast herself as the martyr to irreconcilable differences with other members of the board.
   Brauer said she was against paying incoming superintendent Jesus Chavez a high salary. She was against the rushed hiring schedule, even though she was part of the unanimous vote last October to begin the search for Saavedra's successor. And, oh yeah, she was voted out as president of the board. Vicki Rothschild, once one of her cohorts in the 4-3 majority, is now president, courtesy of votes that Brauer once counted as the opposition.
   In other words, Brauer was outmaneuvered. But not to hear her tell the story: "Often the better part of valor some times is to recognize that it is best to walk away. I depart with regret that our differences have divided us." With her statement, Brauer gave Chavez a tougher hill to climb when he arrives and more work to do in trying to overcome the district's history of discord. Like Capelo, Brauer tried to spin opposition as virtue, as an exercise in principle and courage. In their own eyes, they stand for valor. Why then is the public left to clean up the mess?
  
  
  
  

 
Archives | Arts & Entertainment | Audio/Video | Business | Classifieds | Columns | Food | Forums | Health & Fitness | News | Obits | Opinions | People | Politics | Science/Technology | Search | Sports | Subscribe | Travel | Weather Previous columns | Discussion forums | Home Page

---

  © 2000 Corpus Christi Caller Times, a Scripps Howard newspaper. All rights reserved.