After winning the Women’s Leadership Lifetime Achievement Award earlier this month, former state Sen. Leticia Van de Putte lamented the growing political divide in a discussion with the Texas Business Minds podcast.
“We began to see over the progression in 2000 — certainly in 2011, 2013 — the beginnings of some real divisiveness [in the Texas Legislature],” the San Antonio Democrat said in a conversation with Ed Arnold, editor-in-chief of the San Antonio Business Journal.
She continued: “The instant news cycle and the availability to communicate through social media has also made every single elected official at the state and local level somewhat a target of what’s happening in national politics.”
Van de Putte worked as a pharmacist and owned a medical clinic before getting elected to the Texas House of Representatives in 1990, where she began a 25-year political career. She was elected to the 26th Senate district in 1999.
“At the time, very few women, very few non-lawyers and very few business owners [were in the Texas Legislature]. Certainly no health care professionals,” Van de Putte told Texas Business Minds. “I really brought a different perspective.”
Her early years in the legislature were cooperative and productive, but the work became more divisive near the end of her career, she said.
“The legislature was inviting, and the other members were nurturing,” Van De Butte said. “It didn’t matter if you were Democrat or Republican … . We were there to represent our districts.”
She added: “Sure, we fought and we debated, but it was very rarely personal. That is a shift that we’ve seen on the national level, and unfortunately, on the state and local level.”
A 2014 Pew Research study on political polarization supports Van De Putte’s timeline for the shift. Some 27% of Democrats and 36% of Republicans see the other party as “a threat to the nation’s well-being,” according to Pew’s data, up from 16% and 17% respectively in 1994.
Van de Putte announced her intent to run for Lieutenant Governor in 2014, losing to fellow Texas Sen. Dan Patrick, the Republican who still holds the office today. The next year, she ran for mayor of San Antonio, narrowly losing to incumbent interim mayor and former councilwoman Ivy Taylor.
Van de Putte was severely injured in 2022 when struck by a vehicle while in Orlando, Florida. She has since recovered, but now uses a cane.
Van de Putte runs a consulting firm with former Texas Workforce Commissioner Hope Andrade, who left her position in 2015.
“I think both Hope and I both disliked the type of working conditions with the politics, where the political parties are more interested in making their enemies look bad than actually winning any issue,” Van de Putte told Texas Business Minds. “That’s not our heart, that’s not our minds.”
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This article appears in Aug 21 – Sep 4, 2024.