Associated Press
Sunday, May 27, 2007

AUSTIN -- Against his doctor's advice, a stooped and feeble state Sen. Mario Gallegos Jr. (D) arrives at the Texas Capitol each day, just to make sure his chamber does not take up a bill that would require voters to produce identification at the polls.

And when the rigors of the job start to wear on Gallegos, whose body is trying to reject a liver transplanted four months ago, he retires to a hospital-style bed -- donated by a Republican colleague -- in a room next to the Senate chamber.

From there, he can be summoned at a moment's notice, should his vote be needed to keep the bill from reaching the floor.

Gallegos is putting his health at risk to block a measure he and others say could prevent many minorities and the elderly from taking part in elections in Texas.

"If there was enough votes to block, I promise I wouldn't be here," he said last week from his bed, his slumped shoulders and tired, jaundiced eyes making him look much older than his 56 years. The once-burly lawmaker is now thin, his skin hanging loosely.

In the Texas Senate, bills cannot move forward unless 21 of the 31 senators vote to bring them up for debate. The Democrats hold 11 seats, just enough to block a bill if they stick together. The Senate's five-month legislative session ends Monday.

The Republicans pushing the voter ID bill say illegal immigrants are voting in Texas elections and must be stopped. But Democrats say thousands of legal residents would lose the right to vote because they lack proper identification. Opponents of the measure -- including Gallegos, a Mexican American -- say minorities, the elderly and the poor are less likely than others to have driver's licenses or other documents.

Most of Gallegos's Houston-area constituents are black or Hispanic, and about a quarter of them live in poverty. About one in five speak little or no English.

Doctors say the senator, a recovering alcoholic, should be resting and should be within 100 miles of the hospital where he received the transplant. Austin is about 160 miles from the hospital in Houston.

Under what is known as the Luna Precedent, named for a lawmaker who was hospitalized in the 1990s, legislators can ask for 24 hours' notice that a bill is about to come up. Gallegos was given such notice early this month. But lawmakers can invoke the Luna Precedent only once during a session.

Gallegos's GOP colleagues agreed not to bring up the bill while he was in Houston for a biopsy. That act of courtesy followed days of rancor over Republican Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst's unsuccessful effort to push the bill through when another Democrat became ill.

Sen. Robert Deuell (R) said waiting was "just the decent thing to do."

"I hope he lives, but if for some reason he wouldn't, I couldn't in good conscience have him die thinking he failed," he said.