September 9, 2002
SENATOR MOM:
Kay Bailey Hutchison
___Kay Bailey Hutchison is the only woman ever elected to the United States Senate from Texas. Elected in 1993 and re-elected with a record 4 million votes in 2000, she is one of the top five leaders of Senate Republicans. She is one of the leading voices on foreign policy and national security issues. Sen. Hutchison is a member of the Senate appropriations committee, the commerce committee and the veterans' affairs committee. She was the chief Senate sponsor of the "marriage-tax penalty relief" bill, is the author of of Homemaker IRA legislation and wrote and led passage of the federal anti-stalking statute. She is a native of LaMarque and graduated from the University of Texas and the UT Law School. She served two terms in the Texas House of Representatives and was Texas state treasurer before successfully running for the Senate. She and her husband, Ray Hutchison, a Dallas attorney, recently have adopted a son and daughter, Houston and Bailey.
Q.
___ What do feel is your greatest responsibility as a United States Senator?
___To represent all of Texas. Texas is such a diverse state, and we have so many different interests. We have ports, huge aviation industries, a big military complex. We have rich and poor counties, urban counties and rural counties. Making sure every Texan is well represented is my goal.
Q.
___ You are the only woman to represent Texas in the Senate. Is it difficult for a woman to be a senator in 2002?
___No. Of course, it is a big job being a senator. But it is a big job for a man and for a woman. When I first ran for public office in Texas in 1972, I had to prove myself, and the testing of me I think was more than it was for other opponents. But I don't think that is the case today. I think Texans think of me as their senator and not that I am a woman, and that is the way it ought to be.
Q.
___ What about the job do you enjoy most?
___I love to go out into the small parts of Texas and see the beauty and diversity of our state and how wonderful the people are. It sort of refills my spirit to see the wonder that Texas is. It is just a wonderful state, and I love to get out and be with people.
Q.
___ What about it do you enjoy least?
___I feel like a pinball sometimes, being jerked around in all directions, particularly when we are in Washington and you don't have the time to do things you want to do or in the way you would like to do them. So that becomes the most frustrating part of it.
Q.
___ How has becoming a mother changed your life?
___It's added another layer of infrastructure. It's made it much more hectic, but much more fulfilled. It's added a dimension to my life that is indescribable. I am happier than I have ever been. I now feel that I am inextricably tied to the future. My most important mission is to give my two children the best chance I can to be the best they can be.
Q.
___ As much as you travel, do the children usually travel with you?
___Yes. They are good travelers. They are 12 months and 15 months old, and they travel well. They are little troopers. I take them with me a lot.
Q.
___ How has your life changed since Sept. 11, 2001?
___There was just a very sobering of America after Sept. 11, 2001, as if we had lost our youth and our sort of view that we had the world by the tail. I think that has penetrated everything we do. It certainly penetrated Congress, where we had huge responsibilities to try to secure our homeland and to prioritize the war on terrorism, giving the military everything they need to do the job we are asking them to do and supporting them, and trying to protect the people in our country, too. You feel a huge responsibility to do that. So, it has certainly changed our priorities in a major way.
Q.
___ How important to you is your religious faith?
___Very important. I grew up in a small town of 15,000, LaMarque, Texas, and our social life was based in the church. I was active in Episcopal Young Churchmen, a statewide organization for teens. It was a real growing experience for me to be able to participate. I went to church camp, Camp Allen. It was a central part of my growing up years. And once you have that foundation, you are grounded, and it is part of your life forever.
Q.
___ How does your religious faith affect your role as a U.S. Senator?
___It is very important, and you see it in so many ways. When major things happen, like the events of Sept. 11, 2001, we all turn to religion and faith-based activity that would bring us together and give us strength.
___We have a Senate prayer breakfast every Wednesday morning from 8 to 9. Each week we have a program with a senator telling about faith in their life or something important in their life. It is a great experience and is across party lines and is for any senator or former senator. We meet and have prayer for people in the Senate and their families or others important in our lives, and then we have a program and talk about what the presentation has been and discuss it.
___That is a very important part of my Senate service. It is a time when we all get along across party lines in something that is important to all of us. We have a rule that we never talk outside about what has been said, and it has never been violated. I would say that of the 100-member Senate, probably about 40 attend regularly, and it is a wonderful experience. I see the role of faith in so many ways. It is such an important part of our culture and morality.
Q.
___ What is your position on the separation of church and state?
___The separation of church and state is very clear in the Constitution. We have a secular government elected by the people, and that is very much a part of the governance of our country. But the founders of our country fled religious persecution. They came here for religious freedom. So, to say religion is not part of our country is a huge error, in my opinion. When we say "one nation under God," in our Pledge of Allegiance, we are saying there is a universal God, and we are recognizing that in our pledge to our country. "One nation under God" is a part of our country. We are a country that is not separated from God; we just have a separation in our government that allows people to worship but does not prohibit them from worship. I think there has been a misunderstanding by some people about the role of God in our country.
Q.
___ What person or persons were most influential in your development as a person?
___Certainly my parents. First and foremost, I had wonderful parents. I grew up the old-fashioned way with two parents who loved us. They had integrity and honesty and very strong faith. They would be the strongest influences in my growing up. Through them, the church was a very important part of who I came to be as a person.
___As I said, I grew up in a small town, and at first it didn't have an Episcopal church. So, my mother and father with maybe five other couples started an Episcopal church. I remember as a little girl going to church in a fire station. The visiting priest would come maybe one Sunday a month, and the rest of the time we went to Paul's Union Church, at that time the only Protestant church in town. There was a Catholic church and then Paul's Union Church.
___The Baptists were very active and started their church, and then the Episcopalians started our church. The priest who came to our church, the Rev. Malcolm Riker, had a very influential part in my life. He stayed there for 15 years, is still alive, and when Mother died in 1998, we asked him to lead the service for her. He was a young man, vigorous, the kind of man who could build the church and got us involved in all kinds of activities.
Q.
___ What did you want to be when you grew up?
___I always thought when I grew up that I would just be a mom, that I would have a family and just be a mom. It was never contemplated or discussed that I would do anything else. It was always assumed that I would go to college, because Mother and Daddy had both graduated from the University of Texas. So it was a big priority for them that all three of their children go to college. But I never intended to go beyond that and actually have a career.
___But when I was getting to the point of graduating and still not knowing what I was going to do and not being in love, I started to go to law school, and that is what changed the course of my life. Once I got my law degree and still hadn't gotten married, I kept on going and, of course, started working. I didn't get a job in a law firm because they didn't hire women at the time.
___I became a television news reporter in Houston with KPRC-TV. Because I had a law degree, they decided to cover the Legislature full-time and sent me to Austin. I covered the legislature and then was asked by the Republican county chairman if I would like to run for the legislature. That really started a whole different course for my life.
___Interview by Toby Druin
The Baptist Standard
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