Children of the Cornyn

Good news for Texas Democrats, Republican Senator John Cornyn recently voted against expansion of the Childrens Health Insurance Program. While this positive outlook may seem contradictory to those that support expansion of CHIP, the Senator’s vote may end up helping the Texas Democratic Party defeat Cornyn when he is up for re-election next year. The issue has proven quite costly for Texas legislators who have voted against it resulting in losses for two Republicans and one Democrat in the 2004 elections. These Senators supported cuts that were made to the program in 2003 that led to almost 200,000 Texas children being knocked off of CHIP’s coverage. The fact that an incumbent Democrat lost re-election largely because of his unsupportive stance on children’s health insurance is proof that the issue is at the forefront of a wide range of voter’s decision making. Expansion of CHIP has drawn bipartisan support including a majority of Republicans in recent voting including Senior Texas Senator Kay Bailey Hutchinson.

Winning a seat in the U.S. senate would be huge for the Texas Democratic Party who has not held a seat in the U.S. senate since 1993 and has not held one of the major offices in Texas since Lieutenant Governor Bob Bullock in 1999. Winning a seat would be a small step for the Texas Democratic Party in regaining some power in the State.

To defeat John Cornyn in next year’s election, the party needs to press hard on the issue of children’s health insurance in hopes of winning the hearts of voters. At the same time, they need to be careful to not take their support too far. President Bush has continually voiced his opposition to the expansion of CHIP’s and has reflected that through his veto pen. While national support of the president’s polices are extremely negative, support of him and his policies is still fairly strong in Texas. To completely and harshly oppose the President’s policies could result in loss of support from even the middle of the road voter in Texas. Those voters on the fence are going to be the most important to a potential Democratic win and defeat of John Cornyn in 2008 so it is crucial that Texas Democrats play the moderate political game.

As for Cornyn, he may just want to think about compromising as his approval rating has dropped below 50 percent and will likely take another hit. He has yet to win the hearts of the Texas voter as his counterpart Kay Bailey Hutchinson has, so in order to keep his office, voting to approve expansion of CHIPs may win him enough respect back to fend off the charging Democrats. His reputation of being one of Bush’s biggest allies may have helped him before, but it is likely that those days are fading, and possibly his as well. - Garrett

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