April 23, 2006

Richie Kicks Off Six-Week Stint as Interim
State Chair Amid Gay-Baiting Accusations

By Mike Hailey
Capitol Inside Editor

In a state where three out of every four voters supported a ban on gay marriage last year, the overriding issue in the race for Texas Democratic chair has been whether the party's establishment is trying to prevent the only open gay person to ever serve in the Legislature from being the Democrats' next state leader. The gay former lawmaker says the answer is yes.

Former House member Glen Maxey and progressive supporters think the State Democratic Executive Committee's weekend vote to make Young County Attorney Boyd Richie of Graham the state party's interim chairman for the next six weeks is a prime example of the gay card they have accused party leaders of playing in the past few weeks.

The complaint appears to be directed more at the way Richie became chairman than his actual qualifications for the job or his ability to perform it. Maxey has suggested that former TDP Chairman Charles Soechting resigned two months sooner than expected in order to force an SDEC vote for a temporary replacement who would have the ostensible advantage of incumbency when delegates to the Texas Democratic Convention in Fort Worth in June elect a new state party leader for a full two-year term.

Anticipating that the SDEC's vote on an interim chair essentially would be wired before it was taken at an emergency meeting on Saturday, Maxey and another candidate, San Antonio activist Charles Urbina Jones, decided not to seek the temporary post while vowing instead to continue their campaigns for a full-term when delegates fill the job in less than two months. Richie - an SDEC member - was promoted by the governing board in a unanimous vote at a meeting that drew little advance attention outside of the liberal blogging community.

Richie, a former campaign volunteer for U.S. Senator Ralph Yarborough and gubernatorial candidate Francis "Sissy" Farenthold in her bid against the more conservative eventual winner Dolph Briscoe, reiterated his plans for strengthening the party's message, opening more lines of communication among Democrats and invigorating the grassroots base as he took over the controls for the abbreviated stint.

While the 60-year-old attorney and activist had some harsh words for the GOP trio of Governor Rick Perry, Speaker Tom Craddick and U.S. Rep. Tom DeLay, he was forced on the defensive by Maxey's portrayal of him as a party insider who represented the status-quo. Richie countered by contending that Maxey had been one of the party's highest paid consultants in Texas. For several years while still a House member, Maxey oversaw the development of the state party's computerized voter file that was available for candidates who wanted to lease it from the party.

Maxey represented a liberal Austin district with a high concentration of Hispanic voters for 12 years before bowing out of the House after he and two other Democrats were penciled into the same district by Republicans in charge of redistricting in 2001. He's been a lobbyist and consultant since leaving the House - and he led the statewide opposition to the constitutional gay marriage ban that voters across Texas approved in September 2005. He was a key player in Valinda Bolton's winning campaign for the Democratic nomination for an open House seat in Austin against Jason Earle, the son of Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle.

Richie got a big jump on his rivals in the chair's race when he kicked off his campaign immediately after Soechting announced last year that he would be stepping down when his first full two-year term ended at the state convention this summer. He picked up momentum with endorsements from several House members who are considered conservative by Democratic activists standards. He'd won the support of Democratic gubernatorial nominee Chris Bell by the time Soechting moved up his timetable last month and made his resignation official this past weekend. Soechting emerged from a crowded field of candidates to win the job initially at an SDEC meeting in late 2003 - and he had clear sailing to his election to a full term eight months later by state convention delegates.

Maxey and other gay activists backed Bob Gammage in his primary race for governor against Bell, a former congressman and ex-Houston city council member. While Bell hasn't tried to shoot down suggestions that his support for Richie was due in part to the fact Maxey that backed Gammage, he insists that sexual orientation has nothing to do with his preference in the state chair's race.

Other Democrats who opposed the gay marriage prohibition and similar policies privately acknowledge that they believe the state party's rebuilding efforts and attempts to woo support from the political middle could be undermined if the state chair is gay.

Bell faces Perry and independent candidates Carole Keeton Strayhorn and Kinky Friedman in the general election race for governor.