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Hutchison, Cornyn push for more secure border at GOP convention
New platform full of immigration planks nearly overshadowed by bid to repudiate business tax.
By W. Gardner Selby
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Sunday, June 04, 2006

SAN ANTONIO — Republican U.S. Sens. Kay Bailey Hutchison and John Cornyn, hammering on the unofficial theme of the state GOP convention, roused Republican stalwarts Saturday by vowing to hold out for legislation tightening up the U.S.-Mexico border.

Almost every speaker over two days of floor sessions touched on border unease, stirring thousands of delegates upset by what they see as federal failures to stop illegal immigrants who, they said, could include potential terrorists.

"We are doing more than venting," said Deanna Krehbiel, a Midland delegate. "The people are going to be heard on this. The majority of Texans want to protect sovereignty."

The senators were almost overshadowed Saturday by a fierce tiff among delegates over whether to repudiate the revised business tax recently signed into law by Gov. Rick Perry as part of a plan to lower school property taxes.

Language favoring a repeal of the tax had been sought by Houston physician Steve Hotze, who lobbied fruitlessly last month to stop lawmakers from adopting the gross-receipts tax to be levied starting in 2008.

But the delegates stuck with Perry. The repeal proposal failed 55 percent to 45 percent.

The Senate District 14 delegation, representing most of Travis County, also sided with Perry. Chairman Joe Pojman charged anti-tax forces with spreading misinformation and said, "We can trust this governor."

After the tussle, delegates revised the party's platform, last altered in 2004, to include an expanded section on border security. The 2006 platform, a compilation of beliefs that party candidates are expected to respect if not support, urges President Bush to build a wall along the entire U.S.-Mexico border, an idea dubbed unrealistic by Perry and the state's homeland security director.

The platform is not completely anti-immigration, endorsing the "systematic assimilation of legal immigrants" into the U.S. and the development of a temporary-worker program.

Yet, it also calls for the federal government to stop granting automatic U.S. citizenship to babies born on U.S. soil to illegal immigrants. It states that federal authorities should quickly deport illegal immigrants and rejects giving citizenship to those living here illegally. "No amnesty!" the platform states in bold type. "No how. No way."

Immigration, said Thomas Belmore, 50, an Angleton engineer and delegate, "is pretty much on the minds of everybody I've talked to. If it's not controlled, it's going to bankrupt us."

James Turner, 61, a Castroville retiree and delegate, said Texas should stop educating illegal immigrant children, a move that would run counter to a U.S. Supreme Court order.

"I'd put them on a bus and send them back to Mexico or Honduras or wherever," Turner said.

Amarillo delegate Eloy Heras, 62, said many Republicans are angry with Bush, who has pushed for tighter border security and steps toward a guest-worker program but hasn't closed the door on a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants. Bush has proposed a program that would allow workers to stay in the country legally for a specific amount of time and then require them to return to their home countries.

"I don't know what his angle is," Heras said.

Hutchison and Cornyn lauded Bush.

Hutchison, seeking re-election against Democratic nominee Barbara Ann Radnofsky of Houston, said that until Bush became president in 2001, the nation failed to respond forcefully to terrorist acts, including the 2000 attack on the USS Cole off the coast of Yemen.

Bush, she said, "doesn't back down to terrorists, he won't succumb to partisan attacks, and he will not run from a fight."

Cornyn said Bush's approval ratings are down in part because of criticism from the "liberal press who opposed his election."

"It's popular in some quarters in Washington, D.C., to separate yourself from the president," he said. "I've had some differences with the president from time to time. But it's important to remember just how much we've accomplished."

Although both senators voiced support for the international war on terrorism, neither mentioned Iraq or the conflict there by name. Both underscored their trust in U.S. troops.

"Our job is to support them and back our president against those who want to cut and run," Cornyn said.