‘Mama bear’ of Texas Senate isn’t celebrating
When District 21 voters elected Texas Sen. Judith Zaffirini to office in 1986, they made her the first Mexican American woman to serve in the Legislature’s upper chamber.
The Laredo Democrat recalled that those who congratulated her then often asked, perhaps rhetorically, “Aren’t you proud to be the first?” Zaffirini isn’t easily angered. So, let’s just say the question exasperated her: Was she proud to be the state’s first Mexican American woman senator?
“Proud?” she told them. “I’m disgusted.”
It’s pride wrapped up in struggle.
Zaffirini shouldn’t have been first, yet women and communities of color continue to mark “firsts” in all categories of U.S. society.
In late December, Zaffirini marked another major milestone in her long political career. It came by virtue of her longevity in the Texas Senate and a Houston colleague’s resignation from the Senate.
The resignation made her the highest-ranking member of the Texas Senate and thus its new dean. She’d been a “dean in waiting” for 16 years.
Zaffirini, most known for a perfect voting record with more than 72,000 consecutive votes cast in the Senate, also became the first woman to hold the honorary post.
She’s perfect for it. She’ll preside over the caucus of the whole, when senators meet unofficially and informally.
The dean has been called a “Senate papa bear. Now it’s the mama bear,” she said.
It’s not a job directly in charge of protocol and procedure, but Zaffirini long has taken a role in it by producing 14 editions of the Senate’s presiding guide.
It details how to make legislative motions, providing the proper language to be used in every instance. She has volunteered to do that job for the last 28 years and 14 sessions. It grew out of listening to the vastly varied language used by senators. She helped standardize it.
She also wrote a protocol handbook for the city of Laredo and conducts protocol workshops through her business Zaffirini Communications.
Zaffirini, who might come off as the principal of a tightly run school, is all about decorum, protocol and politeness — even in disagreement.
She’s a woman of substance, possesses a keen eye — and ear — for detail and was most influenced by a doting, but strict mother that had a list of goals for her four daughters.
Zaffirini was educated and just as influenced by Catholic nuns.
In unison, her mother and those nuns instilled in her not only an enviable posture but a dedication to properness. It came wrapped in a passion for education and compassion for those in need, guided by right and wrong.
It’s what she has in common with nuns, who dictated so many rules. She offered this example about using water fountains: “We had to carry collapsible cups because Ursuline girls don’t bend over in public.”
She draws a line back to her upbringing, her mother especially. She required her daughters to be well-mannered, know the rules of etiquette, have typing skills (she was a secretary) and to marry.
“I checked all her boxes,” Zaffirini said.
Her parents were politically active in her hometown of Laredo, helping get out the vote and involving a young Zaffirini in that work.
She learned about health issues after a cousin contracted polio. She volunteered for the March of Dimes when she was in first grade. She was 5. That continued through high school.
“When we heard of polio research that developed a vaccine, we all felt part of that,” she said.
Like so many others, she worked toward establishing a four-year university in Laredo.
Zaffirini keeps her district’s priorities top of mind, even when they don’t reflect her own. She gets her say at the ballot box, she said.
If there’s one honor she most treasures it’s the one that made her an honorary Sister of Mercy.
Sister Judith. Colleagues who attended the ceremony went in laughing. None left that way. The sisters connected each of their tenets to Zaffirini’s legislative agenda.
“The title of dean of the Senate was used in 1909 for the first time,” she said. “There have been 24 senators who’ve held the title. All men.”
One was Mexican American, the late Carlos Truan of Corpus Christi.
So far, only 24 women have served as Texas senators, including the eight serving today.
Without her in line for succession, it would’ve taken a lot longer for a woman to become dean. The next three in seniority are men.
“There are mixed emotions,” she said of the title. “I’m glad it has happened but angry it took so long.”
Much like a woman becoming president of the United States, she added, underscoring that gender alone isn’t the criteria.
Ever the detailed one, she says of all political candidates — whatever their gender, socioeconomic background, race or ethnicity — first, they have to be prepared.