As reported earlier this week, the senior senator from Texas, Kay Bailey Hutchison (pictured), will vote "no" on Sonia Sotomayor's confirmation to the Supreme Court (the story also notes the same "no" vote on Sotomayor's nomination to the appellate bench).
Now comes news that Hutchison will resign her seat later this year to focus on challenging incumbent Rick Perry for the Republican nomination for Texas governor. (Perry will appoint Hutchison's successor. My guess is that Greg Abbott, our Attorney General, will receive serious consideration.)
The fact that Hutchison intends to seek her party's nomination for governor is not surprising. But I've been wondering how her "no" vote on Sotomayor's nomination might affect the governor's race in a state where (according to this "fact sheet") over a third of the population is Hispanic and approximately a quarter of eligible voters are Latinos. Perhaps seeking to "allay criticism" that opposing the Sotomayor nomination "might alienate Hispanic and women voters" in her race against Perry, Hutchison noted that "[t]hirty percent of the federal judges I have selected for nomination for Texas are Hispanic" and "I will continue to support the most qualified judges irrespective [of] race or gender."
How will all this play out? (One recent poll shows Perry with a 10-point advantage (46% to 36%).) Stay tuned. We could have ourselves an old-fashioned shootout down at the corral!
Tim,
I have no idea if she'll end up winning, but I don't think the Sotomayor vote will cost her much politically. Remember that she first has to win the Republican nomination. There are proportionally fewer Hispanics among Texas Republican primary voters than in the state as a whole, and Republicans generally won't be too turned off by a "no" vote on Sotomayor. If she wins the primary, then the Republican advantage in the state will probably be enough to overcome any negative views Hispanic voters (who are likely to vote Democratic anyway) may have because of the confirmation vote.
Posted by: Mike Dimino | July 31, 2009 at 08:36 PM
Related story here:
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/6558308.html
Posted by: Tim Zinnecker | August 03, 2009 at 10:35 AM