[EL] Another day

[George Korbel]

And so we buried Mario Gallegos yesterday.  Too young at 62.  You probably have never heard of him.  He was a Texas State Senator from the Houston area, fire fighter and a son of a multi generational family that fought for Civil Rights in Texas.  He was a plaintiff in scores of voting cases. Yet he ever so gently gave his from his life in an attempt to meet unending needs of his constituents.    As you may know, a Texas State Senators represent more than 700,000 persons and are significantly more powerful and influential  than members of Congress.  Mario used that power and Texas benefited.
 
Mario had a liver transplant some years ago and while he was in the dangerous period around transplant was forced to travel from Houston to Austin (upwards of 200 miles) in an ambulance and  to cast the deciding vote from his gurney killing the ID voting statute for that session at least.  He had been promised that he could undergo the transplant and the Republicans would not bring up the bill others in his absence.  But they did not hold to their word.  They played chicken with Mario and forced Mario to risk his life to vote.   He did so without hesitation against the insistence of his Doctors that  it was to dangerous.  He was one of the organizers of the effort by the Democratic Members of the State Senate who fled to Santa Fe New Mexico in an attempt to kill Tom Delay's infamous Congressional Gerrymander or as Mario sometimes said the Delaymander.    He was a real, plain spoken strong person with the cut of Civil Rights leaders of the 1960s.  So he will be missed.
The last time I spoke to him it was about the increasing political power of Hispanics and what it will mean for the poor.   
 
The promise of that day is close but not close enough for Mario who will have to watch from the other side.  
 
 		 	   		  
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