2002: Five Years Later, Democrats Are Poised To Return To The Top

I remember November 5, 2002 like it was yesterday.

I was working in the newspaper business at the time. Watching returns come in from across the state took on an other-worldly atmosphere as Democrat after Democrat–from the statewides on down–fell to Republican candidates.

It was a bloodbath. It was the night the doors were infamously blown off the Texas Legislature, and a swarm of corrupt, religious-right influenced, anti-consumer Republicans swarmed in like a plague of locusts.

The statewide Democratic ticket’s theme that year was, “A New Day For Texas.” It was a new day all right; it just wasn’t the new day we thought it would be.

It was, in truth, the day that almost destroyed Texas. It wasn’t a tornado or an earthquake–or any natural disaster in the literal sense–but the damage it did to Texas was just as bad.

Without the disaster that was November 5, 2002, there would have been no mid-decade redistricting debacle, the bogus concept of tort reform would not have locked millions of Texans from the courthouses, thousands of Texas children would not have been kicked off their health insurance, and more.

In five short years, Republicans came damned close to destroying a state government that took generations to build and refine.

Today, Democrats are poised to return to the top. Tom DeLay is indicted and all but gone from the political scene. Many of the architects of the 2002 GOP takeover of state government are discredited, defeated, out of the game, or–like House Speaker Tom Craddick–on the skeds.

The last two election cycles have shown that Texans have realized that Republicans care more about special interests, the religious right, and their wealthy donors than they do about average Texans.

Although it may not yet show in statewide results, it will. In 2008, Texans will likely send State Rep. Rick Noriega to the United States Senate, beginning at long last the final stages of the purging of the corrupt Bush-Perry-DeLay-Craddick era in Texas government.

Today, when students in political science classes read about the “worst” times in our state’s political history, they read about Governor Jim Ferguson’s impeachment or the Sharpstown scandal.

The next generation of Texans will learn a new chapter in Texas Government. Perhaps textbook authors will call it the “Republican Revival & Decline.” Whatever they call it, its clear that the era that will form this new chapter is about to come to a close, with a Democratic resurgence.

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