Make Voting a Habit

“If you don’t help make the difference then the difference will not be made.”

Linda Chavez-Thompson Skyped in to the St. Mary’s University journalism class on May 4, 2010 to tell the students more about her campaign for lieutenant governor.

Chavez-Thompson grew up in the Lubbock area with her family and worked in the cotton fields alongside her father as a small child.

By the time that Chaves-Thompson reached the 9th grade, she found herself leaving school in order to help take care of her family. While away from school she became housekeeper and in her spare time Chavez-Thompson taught herself how to read and write in Spanish. This helped her later on in life by landing a job in the Constitution Laborer’s Union in Lubbock, Texas in 1967.

“As a labor lead, in 40 years I spend that time building peoples benefits, building their ability to provide for their family, to get good jobs, to get good salaries, to earn themselves a pension plan.” Says Chavez-Thompson.

After working in the labor union for 40 years, Chavez-Thompson has been elected to these positions: Secretary at the Constitution Laborer’s Union, Executive Vice-President of the National AFL-CIO, Vice Chair of the Democratic National Committee, appointed to President Bill Clinton's Race Advisory Board, and the President's Committee on Employment of People with Disabilities.

Then in 2004, Chavez-Thompson was awarded by the American Association of People with Disabilities with an award named after her - The Linda Chavez-Thompson Award - recognizing her life long commitment to those with disabilities and families within the labor movement.

Student Veronica Luna asks Chavez-Thompson if being a bilingual woman has had any major impact in her life or in her campaign. Chaves-Thompson says, “My bilingualism had benefited me because, my parents taught me the language, we learned it at home, but I have used it. I am currently president of an international confederation of unions in the western hemisphere; I right now represent an organization that represent 44 million workers, from the tip of South America to Canada and my ability to speak Spanish, has helped workers in all of these counties …”

This November, Texans will be able to vote for governor of the state if Texas and for lieutenant governor. Candidates for lieutenant governor are Linda Chavez-Thompson and David Dewhurst.

When asked about the immigration act in Arizona Chaves-Thompson says, “people who look like me are gonna be stopped and have to prove their citizenship, and where talking about some instances where Federal Judges who are mowing their lawns, people who serve on courts and their being asked by people who are walking by to mow their lawns, and this law does not address the real problem and that is what we need to have is a law at the federal government level that addresses itself to earn citizenship and it addresses itself to the exploitation of immigrant works because that is probably the highest problem that we have.”

Chavez-Thompson wants to find away to help the immigrants who are already here in America to stay in America and have a equal opportunity to live the American dream. Dewhurst led the Texas Senate in providing more than $60 million per year to enhance border security, and also wants to  hire additional law enforcement officers and invest in new border surveillance technology.Although Dewhurst address the problem of border control he does not give a detailed plan about what he will do for the immigrants that are already here in America. 

“I’ve always yearned for and literally craved an Education.” Says Chaves-Thompson when she leads into her discussion about the educational system.

 “When I began to see that our educational system wasn’t working and when people talked to me in the month of December of last year about running for lieutenant governor, I thought that if I could bring a message to Texas, If I could get people interested about what is wrong with the education system and about how we are not dedicating enough kind of monies that we need for our children’s education and what we could do to change that I answered yes.”

If elected lieutenant governor, Chavez-Thompson plans to create about two million new teaching jobs in the fields of math and science so that the younger generation are prepared to compete for the jobs of tomorrow. She is willing to tap the Rainy Day Fund in order to ensure that no teacher loses his or her job because of state budget shortages that maybe seen in the future.

Dewhurst on the other hand , plans to “increase educational standards, phase-out the TAKS test, provide merit pay for the best teachers and control the skyrocketing college tuition.

When St. Mary’s student Krista De La Rosa asks Chaves-Thompson what she meant by taking responsibly, Chavez-Thompson says that “the lieutenant governor gets to set the agenda for the Senate, the agenda for the Senate is for instance what will take up first as far as legislation, we have a budget deficit, we’re talking about $20 billion deficit for the state of Texas, and only half is covered by the Rainy Day Fund, and that’s a big problem, we are gonna have to figure out where the other $10 billion is gonna come from, the responsibility is what are we gonna set as our priority, I say education and no cuts in education.” 

Although both candidates differ in many areas, voters can see that each one puts education as a priority.

If either candidate is elected to the lieutenant governor position, their responsibilities will be to serve as presiding officer of the Senate, appoint the committees of the Senate, and to exercise the powers of the governor's office in case of the governor's death, resignation, removal from office, or absence from the state. To find out more informations about the candidates please visit their websites at  http://www.electchavezthompson.com/ or  http://www.daviddewhurst.com/

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