POTENTIAL NEW CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICTS CREATE POLITICAL FRENZY

By Juan Montoya
Even before the U.S. Census has been conducted, local politicians are already positioning themselves to step in and offer their services – meager as they may be – to the residents of South Texas.
The first one to come hat in hand is Eddie Lucio, a Texas State Senator whose qualifications include being named the worst senator in Texas by political journalists in Austin, including the Texas Observer.
He follows in the path of State Rep. Rene Oliveira, who said he needs another two years on top of the more than a quarter century he has served in the House to make sure we get ours. He left unsaid whether he will be a candidate for one of three potential seats in the U.S. House of
Representatives. But reading between the lines, it would be the most logical step for Oliveira, a silver-spoon legislator whose name evokes political power long supported in the Valley's silk-stocking precincts.
Lucio's wish to serve his people in Washington were made during a meeting in Harlingen reported by The Guardian. To date, it has been his first confirmed statement on the matter. In the past, he has deferred to Solomon Ortiz and said his many personal contacts in Austin made it "selfish" for him to try for Solomon's seat.
“We deserve to have at least three congressional districts anchored in the Valley and going north. I will work to that effect next session and I will seriously look at running for one of those seats,” Lucio told the Guardian, in an exclusive interview.
Then, in an obvious Freudian slip, he told Steve Taylor that gaining the seat would "cap his political career," a slip he quickly corrected.
“If I lose another 15 pounds and continue to have the energy I have today I would very seriously like to cap my political career… not so much cap my political career but I would love to address and tackle the issues that are important to us internationally, immigration, health care, water, the environment,” Lucio told Taylor.
In the past, Oliveira also framed in in terms of doing something for his poor people, not for himself or his career.
“I want to lead the fight to create another Rio Grande Valley congressional district in the next legislative session. Our population is growing and we deserve it. The Valley's long-term prosperity depends on it,” Oliveira said.
If Lucio runs for one of the representative spots, it is certain that his role in the $21 million that disappeared from the bridge project at the Brownsville Navigation District will be an issue. Lucio was a consultant to Dannenbaum Engineering, the company that managed that fiasco.
Former Port Director Raul Besteiro told the Brownsville Herald that it was at Lucio's urging that the port switched from Brown and Root to Dannenbaum.
Also lurking in the sidelines is Lucio's work as consultant for the companies that built the prisons in Willacy County that have resulted in indictments and convictions of local public offiicals after Lucio also convinced them to switch companies to build the jails.
Oliveira has been more circumspect.
As an attorney, he has been the recipient of legal referrals from insurance companies that have put a lot of money in his pocket.
Also, he was instrumental in establishing the UTB-TSC "partnership" that resulted in college district taxpayers footing the bill for having the UT System come to Brownsville. As part of that deal, he agreed not to have the Brownsville campus receive funds from the state's Permanent University Fund from oil and gas revenues, one of only two campuses in the entire state that agred not to partake of those funds in order to get UT to agree to come to their city.
Most, if not all, of the construction on the UT Brownsville campus is subsidized by bond issues paid by local taxpayers, residents in one of the poorest sections of the state and country.