Party Switching, Racism And South Texas Memories

[Editor’s Note: Alfredo Santos is a Texas native and the editor of La Voz newspapers in Austin, Texas and shares his memories of South Texas party switching here.]

Aaron Peña’s switch reminds me of then State Representative Pedro Nieto’s move to the Republican Party right before his second run in 1994. In an interview in La Voz de Uvalde County, Pedro said he did it because he would be able to bring home more bacon to Uvalde and the surrounding area. While tacos de bacon and eggs always sound good to me, the voters in his district quickly reminded him that he was not going to be the waiter doing the serving, and they promptly booted him out in the next election.

But party switching has also gone the other way in the Uvalde area.

In the fall of 1968, Dave C. Howard won re-election as the Democratic State Representative from Uvalde. This was the same seat that the late Dolph Briscoe once held in the 1950s. In January of 1969, Howard, along with all the others who got elected, made the trip to Austin to be sworn in and begin work on the people’s business.

As the various members went before the microphone on the floor of the house to say a few words and celebrate their return or arrival, it was soon Howard’s turn. Just as he tapped the mic, cleared his throat and began to speak, he abruptly stopped, and without warning, suffered a massive heart attack and died right there on the floor — in front of everyone, including all the kiddies! A four day recess was called and Howard was brought back for burial.

Governor Preston Smith, as per the Texas Constitution, called for a special election. A total of 10 people filed and everyone said there was bound to be a run-off election with so many candidates. Sure enough, no one got the 50%-plus-one to win outright. The two top vote-getters were, Gabriel Tafolla, 26, a school teacher, and a Democrat from Uvalde and the other guy was John Poerner, 36, a businessman, and a Republican from Hondo, Texas. Well, the thinking was that Tafolla appeared to be the right guy in the right place at the right time. After all, this was the Democratic seat that Dolph Briscoe once held from 1949 to 1955. La cosa estaba de cincho!

On February 27, 1969, after the ballots were in and counted, John Poerner defeated Gabriel Tafolla! We couldn’t believe it! I couldn’t believe it. I was only 16 years old and this was the first political campaign I had worked on. How could Uvalde turn its back on a man from el pueblo? This was Democratic country, que no?

The answer is no. The answer is: It depends. En este caso, Gabriel Tafolla had a pigmentation problem. He had a surname problem. And his bigote was too big. Stated differently, Gabriel Tafolla may have been in the right place at the right time, but his was not the right color. He was a Mexican-American. Más bien dicho, he was a Chicano. But this in not the end of the story.

About five months after John Poerner became the state representative he held a news conference to announce that he was changing his party affiliation so as to “better reflect his constituency.” So John Poerner became a Democrat and just like that, (snap of the fingers) Uvalde and the surrounding area were once again became Democratic country.

When José Ángel Gutiérrez, Carlos Guerra, Mario Compean and all the others were launching La Raza Unida Party about five months later arguing there was no difference between Democrats and Republicans, it was not a hard sell. Hell, we in Uvalde, had just watched first hand what had happened.

But this was forty-one years ago. Today things are different. Times have changed, right?