Fb / Leticia Van De Putte
Leticia Van De Putte was elected into the Texas Legislature in 1990 and served for greater than 20 years.
After successful the Girls’s Management Lifetime Achievement Award earlier this month, former state Sen. Leticia Van de Putte lamented the rising political divide in a dialogue with the Texas Enterprise Minds podcast.
“We started to see over the development in 2000 — actually in 2011, 2013 — the beginnings of some actual divisiveness [in the Texas Legislature],” the San Antonio Democrat stated in a dialog with Ed Arnold, editor-in-chief of the San Antonio Enterprise Journal.
She continued: “The moment information cycle and the supply to speak by social media has additionally made each single elected official on the state and native degree considerably a goal of what is occurring in nationwide politics.”
Van de Putte labored as a pharmacist and owned a medical clinic earlier than getting elected to the Texas Home of Representatives in 1990, the place she started a 25-year political profession. She was elected to the twenty sixth Senate district in 1999.
“On the time, only a few girls, only a few non-lawyers and only a few enterprise house owners [were in the Texas Legislature]. Definitely no well being care professionals,” Van de Putte instructed Texas Enterprise Minds. “I actually introduced a special perspective.”
Her early years within the legislature have been cooperative and productive, however the work grew to become extra divisive close to the tip of her profession, she stated.
“The legislature was inviting, and the opposite members have been nurturing,” Van De Butte stated. “It didn’t matter if you happen to have been Democrat or Republican … . We have been there to symbolize our districts.”
She added: “Positive, we fought and we debated, but it surely was very not often private. That may be a shift that we have seen on the nationwide degree, and sadly, on the state and native degree.”
A 2014 Pew Analysis examine on political polarization helps Van De Putte’s timeline for the shift. Some 27% of Democrats and 36% of Republicans see the opposite get together as “a risk to the nation’s well-being,” in line with Pew’s knowledge, up from 16% and 17% respectively in 1994.
Courtesy Photograph / Leticia Van De Putte marketing campaign
Leticia Van De Putte greets the group throughout a 2014 marketing campaign look.
Van de Putte introduced her intent to run for Lieutenant Governor in 2014, dropping to fellow Texas Sen. Dan Patrick, the Republican who nonetheless holds the workplace at this time. The following 12 months, she ran for mayor of San Antonio, narrowly dropping to incumbent interim mayor and former councilwoman Ivy Taylor.
Van de Putte was severely injured in 2022 when struck by a car whereas in Orlando, Florida. She has since recovered, however now makes use of a cane.
Van de Putte runs a consulting agency with former Texas Workforce Commissioner Hope Andrade, who left her place in 2015.
“I feel each Hope and I each disliked the kind of working circumstances with the politics, the place the political events are extra keen on making their enemies look unhealthy than truly successful any difficulty,” Van de Putte instructed Texas Enterprise Minds. “That’s not our coronary heart, that is not our minds.”
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