February 3, 2005

Vo Echoes Warnings of Asian Vote
Backlash that Some Republicans Fear

Asian Vote Fear Factor Could Be Strike Three
as GOP Members Brace for Election Contest

By Peggy Semingson
and Mike Hailey
Capitol Inside

State Rep. Hubert Vo indicated Wednesday night that he's not that worried about losing the legislative seat he's held for the past three weeks when the final verdict is delivered in an election contest that the full House will consider next Thursday. When asked about increasing worries among Republican House members about a backlash among voters in the Asian community if his victory over GOP icon Talmadge Heflin is tossed out, the Legislature's first Vietnamese-American member said that's a legitimate cause for concern.

"The Asian community is saying, if this election is overturned they'll never vote for another Republican," Vo said after speaking to a standing-room only crowd at a meeting of Democracy for America, a group inspired by Howard Dean's presidential campaign.

While the Asian vote fear factor has been on the minds of House Republicans as they brace for the grand finale in the disputed election case, one high-ranking GOP House member suggested Thursday that there's a more fundamental reason why Vo should retain the southwest Houston seat. "Talmadge ran a terrible campaign," the House member, a key player on Speaker Tom Craddick's leadership team, said bluntly. "He deserved to lose."

But in a process that's unfolding on uncharted waters with no precedents for guidance in almost 10 years, anything is still possible in the House District 149 battle that's still under way more than three months after voters cast ballots. Despite efforts to separate legitimate claims from innuendos and spin, the outcome of the dispute could be determined less by the substance of the evidence and more by the political question of whether House Republicans would rather face the wrath of Asian voters or their own state party and its grassroots base if they're forced to vote on the case.

Recommendations that will be included in a report that's due Monday from Republican State Rep. Will Hartnett, the master of discovery in the ongoing case, could give other Republican House members substantial cover if it concludes that there's insufficient evidence to overturn the results of the November election that Vo initially won by 33 votes. But if Hartnett decides that a Vo lead that has dwindled to 16 or 17 votes makes the election simply too close to call - regardless of whether he endorses allegations of voting irregularities or finds nothing more than predictable human error - five Republicans on the Select Committee on Election Contests will face a monumental decision on what to do next when they convene Tuesday morning for the panel's first official meeting since being picked for the task by Craddick in early December. If any of the House's 81 Republican members were hoping they the election contest would end before they were forced to weigh in on it, State Rep. Terry Keel appeared to put those hopes to an end Thursday when outlining the schedule that the special investigating committee that he chairs will follow once it has Hartnett's report. Keel, an Austin Republican, said the Select Committee on Election Contests will consider the arguments that have been presented in a meeting on Tuesday while the House is in session - and he told members to expect the case to be on the floor for debate two days later.

Some House Republicans agree that a decision to order a new election would be much easier to reach if the Democratic winner in question wasn't a member of the fastest growing minority group in the country. But an increasing sentiment among some Republican members is that taking a historic victory away from one of the first two Vietnamese-Americans in the nation to ever serve in state legislatures would be tantamount to playing with fire. While the state Republican Party has no problems with Vo's immigrant background and correctly notes that the first Asian in the Legislature - State Rep. Martha Wong of Houston - is a GOP member - its leaders have been willing to risk angering a rapidly-growing bloc of voters in both Houston and Dallas with a vigorous campaign to win back a House seat that it claims was stolen by unscrupulous Democrats last year.

The GOP in Texas could already be destined to lose some measure of support among Asian-American voters even if it abandoned its fight to reclaim the seat Heflin held for 22 years. Asian-Americans account for 18 percent of the registered voters in HD 149 - and while Asian immigrants and descendants had never really operated as an organized political force in the state or the nation in previous elections - they turned out in record numbers in the southwest Houston district after a year-long ground campaign by Vo.

But there's no evidence to suggest that Asian-American voters voted for Vo because he was a Democrat. In the Vietnamese community - the largest source of Asian-American votes in Texas - older voters in past election tended to support Republican candidates while younger voters trended toward the Democratic side of the ballot. But in the case Vo - much like that of a California Republican who became that state's first Vietnamese-American state legislator this year - nationality appeared to be the overriding reason that a group of minority voters who've shown little interest in partisan politics so far would vote overwhelmingly for one candidate over another in a state legislative race. But Vo's support wasn't limited to the Asian community in the suburban district on the western edge of Harris County. In claiming more than 50 percent of the vote in a melting pot suburban area where Republican statewide candidates won 58 percent two years before, Vo had to do well among Hispanics and African-Americans and white voters as well. The fact that he received more votes in his district than Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry indicates that he gained some support from voters who backed President George W. Bush for re-election.

But by the same token, Vo's landmark victory probably wouldn't have been possible without an energized and unified show of support from other Asian descendants along with indirect help from a lackluster campaign by an overconfident Republican incumbent who reportedly turned away offers of help while other GOP members stepped in to take charge of his fundraising efforts. After appearing more focused on personal issues than a re-election campaign, Heflin didn't put up much of a fight until after Vo finished in first on election night. With no obvious smoking gun at this point and a lack of sympathy for Heflin, concerns about a backlash among Asian voters could be strike three for a loyal Republican legislative veteran who had been the House's second most powerful member as the Appropriations Committee chairman since the GOP took control of the chambers two years ago.

The potential for payback at the polls from voters of Asian descent might actually be a bigger cause for concern for the GOP's statewide candidates than House members who will make the final determination in the HD 149 challenge. While the Asian population in the inner cities and suburbs of Houston and Dallas is growing rapidly, no other House district in Texas appears to be as vulnerable as HD 149 was for an election to swing on a fired-up Asian vote. The only other House district with a larger population of Asian-American voters than HD 149 is nearby HD 26, which is represented by Republican State Rep. Charlie Howard of Sugar Land. Asian-Americans account for more than 20 percent of the voters in Howard's district, which borders Vo's district on the outer suburban edges west of Houston in Fort Bend County. Asian-Americans accounted for more than 20 percent of the registered voters in Howard's district. But 56 percent of the voters in Howard's district are white compared to only 39 percent in HD 149. As a result, Republican statewide candidates carried 70 percent of the vote in HD 26 in 2002.

The two suburban House districts west of Houston are among about a dozen that Republicans currently hold with Asian-Americans voters accounting for more than 10 percent of the total number of registered voters in their current constituent bases. Two of the other three House districts with Asian voting populations that large are represented by freshmen - Vo and State Rep. Mark Strama, an Austin Democrat who knocked off a GOP incumbent in a close election that had been in dispute until several weeks ago. While Vietnamese-Americans are far the largest subgroup among voters of Asian descent, others include descendants of immigrants who came to American from China, India, Pakistan, Muslim countries and other eastern nations. Republican statewide candidates won more than 65 percent of the vote in all but two of the districts that Republicans hold with Asian-Americans accounting for more than one out of every ten registered voters. Statewide candidates on the GOP slate received less than 70 percent in only four of those counties in 2002.

State Reps. Joe Nixon of Houston and Linda Harper-Brown of Irving might be most ripe for Democratic challenges in the face of a highly-motivated and potentially revenge-minded Asian-American vote in the fairly near future. Nixon represents a district that borders HD 149 on the east with an Asian-American voting population of about 12 percent. About 10 percent of the voters are of Asian descent in a mid-cities district where Harper-Brown won only 59 percent of the 2004 general election vote two years after Republican statewide contenders claimed 64 percent there. Nixon matched the Republican statewide candidates in his district in 2002 with 65 percent of the vote against a token Democratic opponent. But while Nixon and Harper-Brown might be more realistic targets than other Republicans in districts with significant numbers of Asian-American voters, the odds of Democrats fielding candidates as strong as Vo turned out to be might be no better than the odds of Nixon and Harper-Brown running campaigns comparable to Heflin's last year. If Harper-Brown were to lose in 2006, it would probably have more to do with her support for a toll road amendment and red-light bill than an uprising among Asian-American voters angry about the treatment Vo receives this year. Democrats predict that they will have a quality candidate to oppose Nixon, but they will have to overcome vast support the Republican incumbent would likely receive from powerful tort reform interests and Nixon's own proven skills as a campaigner.

Other Republican House members in districts where Asian-Americans account for more than 10 percent of registered voters include Houston State Reps. John Davis, Gary Elkins and Peggy Hamric along with State Reps. Fred Hill of Richardson, Brian McCall of Plano, Jim Jackson of Dallas, Toby Goodman of Arlington and Tony Goolsby of Arlington. Goodman and Goolsby, who won re-election bids with 56 percent and 53 percent of the votes in their districts respectively also could be in trouble with Asian-American voters revolted as a bloc against Republicans in anger over the Heflin-Vo case. All of the other GOP state representatives with larger blocs of Asian voters are in districts that Republicans have been carrying with more than 70 percent of the total vote. Democratic State Rep. Scott Hochberg, who won re-election easily despite a high-dollar Republican challenge in another west Houston district, has a higher percentage of Asian-American voters than most of the other nearby districts with the exception of those represented by Nixon, Howard and Vo.

A significant shift of the Asian-American vote to the Democrats' side of the ledger might have the most potential for impact in close statewide races or at the national level as the eyes of Asian-Americans from other parts of the country are focused intensely on the Heflin-Vo case. Even if Asian-American voters don't start taking partisan sides, the battle for HD 149 is expected to have a long-lasting influence on the level of interest in electoral politics in the Asian community in Texas and beyond.

In the meantime, the ball is in the court of the special committee that includes Keel and four other Republicans: State Reps. Mary Denny, Suzanna Hupp, Phil King and Larry Phillips. The state GOP has published their names on a daily basis for most of the past two weeks urging grassroots supporters to contact them to express support for Heflin. Hupp has more Asian-American voters in her district than any of the other four Republican committee members - even though she has less than one-third as many as HD 149. A Lampasas Republican who was named last week as Human Services Committee chair, Hupp also is the only one of the Republicans on the special election contest panel who had a Democratic opponent last year. She won re-election with 60 percent of the vote in a district where about five percent of the voters are of Asian descent.