Reprint from the Progress Times - February 22, 2008
©Progress Times 2008 - All Rights Reserved

District 36 race fiercest in town

 

With early voting in full swing and the March 4 primary election day fast approaching, the District 36 Texas State House of Representatives race is being fought tooth and nail between incumbent Kino Flores and challenger Sandra Rodriguez.

Flores, who took office in 1997, was born and raised in La Joya. Upon graduation he enlisted in the United States Army after which he returned to the Rio Grande Valley and served on the La Joya School Board for seven years before running for Texas State representative.

Rodriguez, who was born and raised in Mission, worked for more than six years as a probation officer then later as a law enforcement teacher at schools in the Rio Grande Valley.

The two candidates, although both running for a seat at the Democratic table, have positioned themselves as diametrically opposed to one another on a myriad of issues.

First and foremost of those issues is the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP). SCHIP is a U.S. federal government program that gives funds to states in order to provide health insurance to families with the children. The program was designed to cover uninsured children in families with incomes that are modest but too high to qualify for Medicaid. At its creation in 1997, SCHIP was the largest expansion of health insurance coverage for children in the U.S. since Medicaid began in the 1960s.

Flores says he is "proud to have worked on legislation that increases healthcare access for our children" and is named as a co-author of House Bill 109 which restored health insurance benefits for more than 127,000 Texas children under CHIP and was signed by Governor Perry in July, 2007,

However, his opponent Rodriguez has made an issue of Flores voting record on SCHIP.

"There were a lot of children that were left behind when my opponent voted seven times against CHIP," said Rodriguez in an interview.

These votes were to expand the CHIP program, and legislators were hard-pressed to find funding for the new program, which had greatly exceeded projected costs.

Another hot-button issue in this race is voter identification, which was the subject of a heated vote in the House on April 23, although was later shot down in the Senate by 11 democrats who banded together to prevent the bill from getting to the floor.

Rodriguez claims Flores did not fulfill his commitment to his constituents when he sat out of the vote on H.B. 218, also known as the Voter ID Bill which would have required voters to bring a photo ID or two forms of non-photo ID to the polls, instead of only a voter registration card.

Although Flores has said he was ill when he missed the vote on this bill, Rodriguez said she believes Flores’ interests are too often distracted and takes Flores’ absence, one of three Democrat absences, as a sign of solidarity with the Repub-licans."

Flores’ main message throughout the election to voters has been about his record. He said he has delivered for his constituents. 

"Most importantly is Kino doing his job, delivered for his job?" asked Flores in an interview. "Absolutely. He has delivered for his children. There is a lot at stake during these changing times and I am a senior ranking member in the legislature and a chairman. I have the know-how to continue to deliver for South Texas."