State Sen. Eddie Lucio is looking ahead to 2011 and the possibility that there’s a seat in Congress for him.
State Sen. Eddie Lucio says he will seriously consider running for Congress after the next round of redistricting, which takes place in 2011.
The Brownsville Democrat says the huge growth in population in the Rio Grande Valley over the last ten years merits the creation of two new U.S. House seats anchored in the four-county region, in addition to the district currently represented by Congressman Rubén Hinojosa, D-Mercedes.
“We deserve to have at least three congressional districts anchored in the Valley and going north. I will work to that effect next session and I will seriously look at running for one of those seats,” Lucio told the Guardian, in an exclusive interview.
“If I lose another 15 pounds and continue to have the energy I have today I would very seriously like to cap my political career… not so much cap my political career but I would love to address and tackle the issues that are important to us internationally, immigration, health care, water, the environment,” Lucio said.
“I think there are a lot of wonderful things we could do at the federal level that would benefit the Valley and South Texas.”
Sen. Lucio is the least reliable Democrat in the Senate caucus, whose doublecross on an anti-environment bill aimed at Houston in 2007 helped earn him a spot on the Ten Worst list (he was upgraded to Furniture for this past session) and still personally chaps my hide. But I wouldn’t underestimate his ability to get a district drawn that he could win. Just another thing to keep an eye on as we head towards the next session.